36 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



distances with marvellous rapidity, as do the Australian sorcerers. 

 To gain entrance to the profession he does not need to have some 

 1 1 larked physical deformity or hideous countenance. The most 

 powerful tohunga was often of high birth and held a high and 

 influential position in the tribe. He believed implicitly in his 

 powers, and was often an extremely shrewd man. His stock- 

 in-trade consisted of a knowledge of very many karakia ; an 

 ability to interpret omens ; a bodyguard of good genii or familiar 

 spirits who at his call would attack and kill his enemies or their 

 attendant familiar spirits (atua) ; and a large amount of common 

 sense. He sometimes carried a staff, sometimes a taiaroa, a 

 peculiar long ornamental staff used for purposes of enchant- 

 ment, 



Maori sorcery differs very considerably from that of the 

 Australian blacks, especially in the absence of all those practices 

 by which foreign substances are magically introduced into the 

 victim's body to set up disease, and also in the total absence of 

 any such custom as the magic extraction of the kidney-fat. 

 Australian aboriginal sorcerers kill by " pointing the bone," 

 or by transmitting to the body of their sorceries small fragments 

 of magic rock crystal, or bone, or chips of wood, or other hard 

 substance. These entering the vital organs cause pain, disease, 

 and death. The Maori tohunga kills either by sending a demon 

 or spirit to gnaw the vital organs, or he, by symbolic magic, ex- 

 tracts, or in some way destroys, the life-principle (hau), or the 

 dream-ghost (wairua). 



The potency of makutu depends far more on the repetition 

 of special cryptic karakia (incantations, invocations, charms, &c.) 

 than on the proper performance of any elaborate ceremonials. 

 The great essential to nearly all the rites of sorcery among 

 the Maoris was the correct rendering of the ancient and 

 often very long incantations; the accompanying rites were 

 generally simple, and often consisted in sprinklings with water, 

 and the symbolic burial of the soul of the victim. 



Forms of Sorcery, 

 (a.) Charms and Curses. 

 According to Gudgeon, " there are many degrees of a Maori 

 curse, and those being the cause of a person becoming bewitched, 

 a few specimens will not be out of place. There are three prin- 

 cipal degrees— viz., the kanga, the apiti, and the tapatapa. The 

 kanga is the superlative curse, and has various forms, as " Upoko 

 kohua," which means, "You skull to cook in.'* and "Upoko 

 taona," "You cooked head." The kanga is an actual wish that 

 the person cursed may be eaten— absolutely the most terrible 

 and degrading end that any Maori could have. The apiti is a 



