Goldie — Maori Medical Lore. 103 



leave the place, nor visit the village, nor approach any place 

 where food is cooked, nor even come near any person who is noa 

 (void of tapu). When food is prepared for the lying-in woman, 

 it is carried by a noa person from the cooking-place, and depo- 

 sited on the ground at some distance from the sacred precincts 

 of the foetus-house, the bearer returning at once. Not until that 

 bearer has retired does the kai tiaki (caretaker) venture to fetch 

 it. She will get it and carry it to within some little distance of 

 the whare kahu, and there deposit the same. The woman will 

 then leave the shed and come to the place where the food is, and 

 there eat it. But the food must on no account be taken near 

 the shed or the child, for it is cooked food, the most polluting 

 and degrading thing known to the Maori — dangerous to life 

 and disastrous to man's future welfare. Should that cooked 

 food be taken near the child while the latter is in the state of 

 intense tapu which obtains prior to the performance of the tua 

 rite, then the hapless infant would be tamaoatia, or polluted ; 

 that is to say, the sacred life-principle would be so polluted, and 

 endangered, and the child's welfare probably be utterly ruined. 

 For it would be exposed to all the ills which assail man ; it would 

 be lacking in spiritual, vital, and intellectual power and prestige, 

 open to the shafts of magic, the sport of the gods, the food of 

 Hades." 



" The term whare kahu, or whare whakahaku, is to a certain 

 extent a figure of speech, inasmuch as, in fine weather, no 

 shed at all may be erected, the woman giving birth to her 

 child in the open. Nevertheless the term would still be applied 

 to the place, and the same intense tapu prevail." (Tuhoe.) 



' Even now women are not allowed to give birth to a child 

 in a dwelling-house in a village, but go to a hut, or erect a 

 tent, away from the village. It is deemed unseemly to utilise a 

 dwelling-house for this purpose, and not right that people should 

 hear the groans of the parturient woman." (Tuhoe.) 



The Maoris had a famous mat called Takapau-whara-nui,* 

 made from the scalps of fallen enemies. On this the great 

 priests and ariki were begotten. Often some dry grass was used 

 by the common people. 



The posture assumed by the parturient Maori woman was- 

 that invented by the god Tura, or Grey-head. When his wife 

 was about to be delivered he fixed two posts (turuturu) for her 

 use. One, called Pou-tama-wahine (the post of the daughter), 



* Takapau-ivharanui is essentially a figurative expression, and is used 

 to denote that a child was born in lawful wedlock. It implies that a special 

 takapau, or sleeping- mat, was used during copulation. (/ aitia a mea 

 tangata ki runga i te takapau - wharanui.) It is more than doubtful 

 whether any scalp mats were ever made by the Maori. They were not 

 scalpers, but beheaders. — E. B. 



