82 Transaction*. — Miscellaneous. 



chief. At the same instant another female voice was heard from 

 a young girl who was held by the wrists by two young men, 

 her brothers : ' Is it you ? Is it you ? Truly is it you ? Aue. 

 ■aue ! they hold me, they restrain me, they watch me, but I 

 go to you. The sun shall not rise, the sun shall not rise. Aue. 

 Aue ! ' Here she fell insensible on the rush floor, and with the 

 sister was carried out." The seance was prolonged far into the 

 night, and soon after the proceedings terminated the whole 

 village was roused by the report of a rifle. " Out I rushed. A 

 house had been set on fire to make a light. Before another 

 house, close at hand, a dense circle of human beings was formed. 

 I pushed my way through, and there, in the verandah of the house, 

 was an old gray-bearded man ; he knelt on one knee, and on the 

 other supported the dead body of the young girl who had said 

 she would follow the spirit to spirit-land. The young girl had 

 secretly procured a loaded musket, tied a loop for her foot to the 

 trigger, and blown herself to shatters." 



Given, then, a people who are highly emotional, whose brain 

 is in a state of unstable equilibrium, liable to excessive excite- 

 in "lit or profound melancholy ; who have no fear of death, and 

 in whom the life-preserving instinct is feebly developed ; who are 

 deeply superstitious, attributing unlimited evil powers to their 

 malignant gods and wicked sorcerers — when one possessing such 

 mental attributes in a marked degree becomes convinced that he 

 is the victim of a powerful god or tohunna, the excessive nervous 

 shock renders the whole nervous system paretic ; he offers no 

 resistance to the stuporose condition which then supervenes ; 

 he becomes self-absorbed and dwells on the enormity of his sin 

 an 1 the utter hopelessness of his condition ; he is the helpless 

 victim of delusional melancholia. He is submerged by one over- 

 mastering delusion : he has offended the gods, he must die. 

 Tli'M'e is an abeyance of interest in things external : the morbid 

 state is most acutely centralised; there is great nervous de- 

 pression ; there is a loss of physical energy, and this secondary 

 depression spreads gradually to all the organs : the vital functions 

 are all depressed, the heart becomes depressed, the involun- 

 tary muscles become dormant, and finally there is a complete 

 anergia or death. The unbalanced mind succumbs without a 

 struggle to (he severe mental shock of overwhelming super- 

 stitious fear. 



Venereal Diseases Diarrhoea, etc. 



Gonorrhoea was introduced by bhe early whalers' and t raders' 

 crews. 



Kotureture is a venereal disease. It causes the skin id body 

 an 1 limbs i" turn a hideous white, in large blotches. The natives 



