1'04 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



he stuck securely in the ground in front of her ; the other, called 

 Pou-tama-tane (prop of the son), he fixed at the back of his wife. 

 " Now," said Wai-rangi, " the post or prop at your back is for 

 you to rest against, and the prop in front of you is for you to 

 hold on by, so that you may not be overcome." According to 

 another version of this myth, the god " fixed three posts, so that 

 against one the feet could be pressed, and that the other two 

 could each be grasped by either hand." This mode so delighted 

 the people that it has continued to be practised until the present 

 time.* Sometimes the woman merely kneels down, with the 

 thighs apart, and with the hands resting on a tree or branch : 

 or she may kneel down with the body bent forward and her 

 weight supported by two poles driven into the ground. The 

 kneeling parturient woman is sometimes supported by another 

 woman kneeling behind her and grasping her round the body : 

 or the assisting sage-femme may place herself in front of her 

 patient, and while kneeling on one knee, use the other to massage, 

 or press firmly over, the lower part of abdomen or uterus of the 

 woman in labour. Sometimes, if there is any delay in the labour, 

 the parturient woman twines her arms around the knees of an 

 assistant in order to press them against the fundus of the womb. 

 I uses of protracted labour violent pressure is applied to the 

 abdomen, and Dr. Thomson saw a young Maori woman who 

 was suffering from extensive ulceration of the muscles of the 

 abdominal wall, which had come on after a protracted labour. 

 He thought it might have been produced by too violent pressure. 

 Other methods were also used in the treatment of cases of 

 protracted labour {nga wahine whakatina), the chief of which 

 consisted in the repetition of charms and incantations to the god 

 or goddess of parturition. In some cases, on the arrival of the 

 tohunga he stepped over the woman, breathed on her. and after- 

 wards, retiring to a short distance, sat down and repeated his 

 incantations. If the labour terminated favourably it was 

 looked upon as resulting from the influence of the medicine-man 

 in averting the anger of the demons ; bu1 it' it terminated Eatally 

 the tohunga was considered to have incurred the displeasure of 

 the malignant spirits, and to have lost his influence (mana). 

 Difficult labour was not attributed to mechanical causes or phy- 

 sic il defects, but to the influence of evil spirits, and was treated 

 accordingly. In the case of a chief's wife or any woman of im- 

 portance, the seer (»i(itakit(>) is called to discover by clairvoyance 

 or other means I he particular breach of the tapu law which is the 

 rause of the trouble. The father of the child then plunges into 

 the river, while the tohunga repeats his karahia, and the child 

 will generally I"- born ere he returns. The Arawa Tribe used the 

 following karahia in such cases : — 



* From White's "Ancient Historj o\ the .Maori.* 



