Goldie. — Maori Medical Lore. 81 



Sea Islanders, Melanesians, and Australian native races. And 

 although death is not due in such cases to the true " rapidly fatal 

 melancholia of the South Sea Islanders," yet the condition is a 

 nearly allied one. 



No one, I think, has attempted to explain the rationale of 

 death from this curious form of melancholia. The victim is 

 popularly supposed to " will himself to death," but we cannot 

 seriously attribute the fatal issue to the will-force of the savage. 

 The chief characteristic of the Maori mind is its instability. 

 His mental equilibrium is at the mercy of a thousand daily 

 incidents ; he is the plaything of outside circumstances. His 

 brain not having been subject to a prolonged course of moral 

 and intellectual culture, he lacks that mental balance which is 

 the characteristic of highly civilised peoples. He is incapable 

 of governing himself ; he will laugh or cry for the most futile 

 reasons ; explosions of joy or sadness may disappear with him in 

 an instant. A Maori chief once burst into a violent fit of tears 

 because some sailors had covered one of his smart cloaks with 

 flour — the insult completely overpowered him. I have seen a 

 crowd of weeping mourners at a Maori tangi suddenly burst forth 

 into yells of delight and laughter at the grimaces and grotesque 

 postures of some dancing-women. A Tahitian woman who was. 

 crying bitterly because her child had just died broke out into 

 laughter when she saw Captain Bligh. Thus the savage is liable 

 to sudden fits of happiness or of depression. 



In that curious mental condition called " South Sea Island 

 hvsteria," the patient, after a preliminary period of depression, 

 suddenly becomes violently excited, seizes a knife or some weapon, 

 an 1 rushes through the village slashing at everybody he meets, 

 an 1 doing no end of damage, until he finally falls exhausted. If 

 he cannot find a knife, he might rush to the ocean reef and fling 

 himself into the water and swim for miles, until rescued or 

 drowned. This violent hysterical excitement is common to all 

 the islands, as is the opposite condition of sudden and profound 

 mental depression. A pakeha once attended a Maori spiritualistic 

 seance at which the local tohunga had promised to call up the 

 spirit of a noted young chief recently killed in battle. He thus 

 describes the proceedings : " At night we all met the priest in 

 the large house. The priest retired to the darkest corner. All 

 was expectation, and the silence was only broken by the sobbing 

 of the sister and other female relations of the dead man. They 

 were in an agony of excitement, agitation, and grief. Suddenly, 

 without the slightest warning, a voice came out of the darkness. 

 ' Salutation ! Salutation to you all ! Salutation ! Salutation to 

 you, my tribe ! Family, I salute you ! Friends, I salute you ! ' 

 A cry of despair and affection came from the sister of the dead, 



6 — Trans. 



