386 Essays. 



With the New Zealanders the observances of the tapit, were in place of 

 religion. Hence it was that the tapii, was so rigidly upheld and enforced. 

 Nothing could set it aside or alleviate it ; all were equally obnoxious to it. 

 Hence, too, we may see why they increased the misery of the miserable, and 

 made the wretched sufferer still more wretched. If a man died at home in 

 peace, it was owing to the anger of the demon Whiro (and very likely, as 

 stated by the "priests," in seven cases out of ten, to have been inflicted on 

 account of some infringement of the tapii) ; consequently the family were 

 to be also pillaged and peeled, to end, if possible, the visitation, by still 

 further 



" placating the dread Atargatis." 



If a canoe was upset, such of course could only be caused by the anger 

 of the watery ruler, the New Zealand Neptune, Taiohirimatea (perhaps, 

 too, for some secret infringement of the taim) ; when the result must be the 

 same, on the part of those on shore — siding, for the time, with the stern 

 Nemesis. So in the case of death, or captivity in war, the malignant demon, 

 Tu, who there presided, had definitively sentenced, as seen (doubtless for 

 some violation of the tapu), and it only remained for the living — the captive 

 and his relations — to ratify by silently acquiescing. Even their savage 

 cannibalism at such times may owe much of its origin to their belief in this. 

 Again, in the case of the new seine (par. 36), which is rigidly tabooed until 

 the first fish taken are tabooed and set free, their legends of Maui and his 

 fishing up the North Island of New Zealand state that the present broken 

 and abrupt face of the country is entirely owing to the brothers of Maui 

 rushing to cut up the huge fish he had caught without having made the 

 tabooed offerings of the first fish. Consequently it came to pass that under 

 the tapio they were secularists, never once thinking or caring about an here- 

 after. Not that they disbelieved in an after state for man ; but (1) that it 

 was not a state to be desired ; and (2) that it would follow as a matter of 

 course, not being dependent or contingent on anything done on earth — 

 unless it were, on the one hand, in being a strenuous supporter of the 

 "priests" and of the tapio; and, on the other, of dying a slave. 



39. Death with the New Zealander was the passage to the Beinga (Hades), 

 the unseen world containing his departed people. No one, however, unless 

 some suicides in a fit of insanity, ever willingly went there. Even the 

 disembodied went on unwillingly, casting lingering, longing looks behind. 

 Occasionally (according to the natives) a few of such returned from the 

 very verge to the bodies and the world they had left ; such truly recovered 

 from the gates of death. In the Eeinga, the departed live without labour 

 and trouble. They feed on liumara (sweet potatoes). Messages were often 

 given to the dying person to take to deceased relatives there. All funeral 



