Goldie. — Maori Medical Lore. 109 



cut too close. The condition disappears as the child grows 

 older. The Maori child, having been washed, has all its joints 

 manipulated and bent, and finally, to add to its beauty, the 

 nose is pressed flat against the face, a prominent nose being 

 considered extremely ugly. 



" The umbilical cord has three subdivisions. The end next 

 the child is termed the pito, that attached to the placenta is called 

 the rauru, while the middle portion is known as the iho (see 

 ante). Should the cord happen to break towards the placenta 

 end during labour, such is termed a rauru motu, and the mother's 

 life will be in great danger — no one save a very expert tohunqa 

 can save her ; the child also will be stunted and puny. On 

 account of this belief, a sickly or small person is often termed 

 a rauru motu. If the iho has a knotted appearance, it is be- 

 lieved that the woman's next child will be a boy. The Maori 

 was not acquainted with the function of the umbilical cord, 

 but believed that the child received sustenance from the mother 

 through the fontanelles (wahi tamomo) of the skull." (Tuhoe.) 



The new-born babe, if a first-born child of a chief, is a 

 very sacred object, and must first be rendered noa or free 

 from tapu. The tohunqa accordingly makes a number of 

 clay balls, setting them in a row on the ground, and raising 

 little mounds of earth near them ; these mounds were named 

 after the principal gods, and the clay balls were named 

 after the ancestors of the child. The priest then takes a 

 branch of the sacred karamu (Coprosma), ake, or other suitable 

 plant, and, fastening a portion to the child's waist, repeats the 

 appropriate karakia, called tuapana (which removes the tapu 

 also from the mother, as already stated), and the ceremony is 

 over. The horohoronga is part of a ceremony to take the tapu 

 off a new-born child ; it consists in preparing an offering by 

 cooking certain food in three separate ovens, one of which is 

 set apart for the family gods, one for the priest, and one for the 

 parents. Girls were dedicated at their birth to Hineteiwaiwa, 

 goddess of child-bearing and of all the necessaries of life. 



Dentition is occasionally accompanied with irritation and 

 convulsions, but the latter complaint is less frequent than 

 among European children. The following charm is used by 

 Maori mothers to hasten the process of teething : — 



Growing kernel, grow, 



Grow, that thou niayest arrive 



To see the moon now full. 



Come, thou kernel, 



Let the tooth of man 



Be given to the rat, 



And the rat's tooth 



To the man. 



