60 REMEDIES FOR DISEASES. [PART I. 



chief that in future he would deliver up to justice 

 all who committed these murders. It is a curious 

 fact, which has been noticed in Tahiti, Hawaii, 

 and other islands inhabited by the great Polyne- 

 sian race, that their first intercourse with Eu- 

 ropeans produces civil wars and social degradation ; 

 but that a change of ideas is quickly introduced, 

 and that the most ancient and deeply-rooted pre- 

 judices soon become a subject of ridicule to the na- 

 tives, and are abolished at once. The grey priest, 

 or tohunga, deeply versed in all the mysteries of 

 witchcraft and native medical treatment, gives way 

 in his attendance on the sick to every European 

 who pretends to a knowledge of the science of sur- 

 gery or medicine, and derides the former credulity 

 of his patient. As the diseases are generally ascribed 

 to psychical causes, they are treated by means of 

 prayers, "not however without some attendance on 

 the body. If a chief or his wife falls sick, the 

 most influential tohunga, or a woman who has " the 

 odour of sanctity," attends, and continues day and 

 night with the patient, sometimes repeating incan- 

 tations over him, sometimes sitting before the house 

 and praying. The following is an incantation which 

 is said by the priest as a cure for headache. He pulls 

 out two stalks of the Pteris esculenta, from which 

 the fibres of the root must be removed, and, beating 

 them together over the head of the patient, sings 

 this chant : 



