384 lEssays. 



sneezing, various persons or peculiar things first met on leaving the house, 

 &c., &c., were all ominous. An aiiiia, or evil prognostic, casually arising by 

 some chance thing or accident done by or to another, was also believed in. 

 Ghosts, too, were commonly believed, and greatly dreaded ; but this haunt- 

 ing spirit or phantom (Jcelma) which haunted its former place of residence 

 when in the body, and also the repositories of the dead, differed widely from 

 the sensible intellectual spirit (toairua) which had dej)arted to the reinga, 

 and which was not feared. The former were as lemures and larvae, the 

 latter as manes or spirilus. There were also nocturnal visitations {taepo) ; 

 voices from the dead ; demon spectres speaking in the whistling winds, 

 especially in an old hut ; and, above all, the last words i^'poroalci) of the 

 dying, to which they paid great attention, and when spoken at random, in 

 great weakness, wandering, or delirium, were often productive of much 

 mischief. They had also their soothsayers and augurs, who gave predictions 

 of lucky and unlucky days for fighting, voyaging, &c., and which they often 

 ascertained by a kind of sortes, or lot. Many of the " priests " were great 

 physiognomists, and read the features closely, that they might know what 

 such a slave would become ; they also believed in something akin to the 

 " evil eye " of the East. Some tribes disliked the owl and the lonely little 

 swamp ^iivdLmaata {Splienoeacus punctatas) , and yet they both persecuted and 

 tilled them. All lizards were more or less dreaded by every New Zealander : 

 this is a curious feature, and worthy of deep investigation. It was their only 

 living representation for the Ahui, (or malignant demon), which, according 

 to their belief, was gnawing their vitals in sickness, and especially in con- 

 sumption ; while, however, stout men and warriors would often fly from a 

 lizard, they would also return and kill it. Shooting stars, meteors, and phos- 

 phorescent fires in woods and marshes, they considered portentous ; but 

 thunder, lightning, severe storms, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes, they 

 laughed at. The nearness of the moon to a star or planet was also considered 

 very ominous. They had many trivial ceremonies in travelling and voyaging ; 

 as in crossing the culminating peak of a range, or by certain solitary 

 stones (named) , or by any famed clifl: or cavern, or upon entering on dreary 

 plains, or on crossing a spot termed by them the backbone of the North 

 Island ; at such places they all singly perform a slight simple ceremony in 

 passing ; gathering a small branch, they cast it on or towards the object, 

 using a few words by way of salutation, or custom, or charm, which words 

 varied in different parts and by different tribes. So at sea, on being about 

 to pass over a bar, or to enter a narrow tidal passage, or to pass round a 

 cape or headland ; there they would halt a moment, and the " priest," 

 or chief, would mutter a few words of chaunt or charm, and then proceed. 

 To. the writer it has ever been most animating at such a time, with 



