34 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



carefully disposed of the spittle, either by secretly burying it or 

 throwing it into the sea. Remnants of a repast were also used 

 as a bait, and after having spells pronounced over it was buried. 

 Food could also be bewitched during a meal by merely quietly 

 repeating a charm as the victim ate. Or the food could be be- 

 witched beforehand by means of karakia. He who ate such 

 food which had been rendered tapu would be punished by atua 

 with sickness. Such cases are not, however, instances of sym- 

 pathetic magic. A man's clothing is permeated with his hau and 

 makes an excellent bait ; so also, but to a lesser extent, is the 

 earth which bears a foot-print, and a seat on which one has been 

 sitting. If suspicious of the hau being abstracted for purposes 

 of makutu he will, as he rises, touch the seat with his left hand 

 and scoop up the invisible portion of hau. In the good old days, 

 persons travelling through a hostile country would walk as much 

 as possible in water, so as to avoid the danger of having their 

 manea {hau of the human foot or foot-print) taken. Should 

 a sorcerer chance to come upon your trail and extract your 

 manea from your footsteps, and take that manea to his abode 

 and suspend it on the whata puaroa (place used as an altar), 

 and then when the sacred mara tautane (ground in which is 

 grown kumara for the gods) is being cultivated he bury the 

 manea in that place, together with some of the seed kumara. 

 then you will surely die. 



Makutu was resorted to often for the purpose of avenging 

 some insult, or to punish a thief or other evildoer. " A respect- 

 able tohunga. or priest," says Gudgeon, " of any standing in this 

 profession would as a rule disdain to use his powers against a 

 common man who might affront him, unless indeed the insult 

 une very glaring, in which case discipline had to be maintained. 

 " Hut," he adds, " there were tohungas and tohungas : all of them 

 were not respectable." If a person offended another he could 

 secure a sorcerer to bewitch his enemy to death on making a suit- 

 able payment. In a case of theft it was not always necessary 

 to consult a tohunga. The person who was robbed might take 

 a twig of a tree, and, going to a pool of water, invoke his special 

 atua until the wairua of the thief appears. If the wairua ap- 

 peared the thief would surely die. Or the person robbed might 



take to the tohunga the hau of the place from which the article 



bad been taken. His hau would probably hi' a portion of earth 

 on which the article had been laid. As the person approached 

 the tohunga, the latter would see the !_ r host of the thief advancing 

 by the side of the hearer of the hau. He would then call upon 

 the spirit of the thief to confess. If he did so lie was allowed to 

 live. Bui should he deny the theft, then his wairua would be 

 slain by the awful arts of the priest. 



