﻿318 Transactions — Chemistry. 



they were washed clean by knocking them about pretty roughly to rid them of 

 the outer skin, etc., taken out, spread in the sun on mats and stages, and 

 carefully dried ; and when quite dry again put up in new baskets for winter 

 use, for feasts, for distinguished visitors, and for gifts to friendly chiefs and 

 tribes residing inland. 



" As the same karaka woods did not bear alike plentifully every year, the 

 years of barrenness were to the tribe seasons of calamity and want, the karaka 

 being one of their staple vegetable articles of food. 



" 2. The symptoms attending cases of poisoning through eating the raw 

 kernel were — violent spasms and convulsions of the whole body, in which 

 paroxysms the arms and legs were stretched violently and rigidly out, accom- 

 panied by great flushings of heat, protrusion of the eyes and tongue, and 

 gnashing of the jaws, but unattended by vomiting (very different in appeai'- 

 ance and result from the bite of the poisonous spider, katipo, of which 

 I have also seen and attended several cases, which are of a much more 

 mild type, and never fatal). I mention this as both were likely to 

 be caused in the same locality (near the uninhabited sea-shore) and season, 

 and at first by a tyro might be mistaken. Unless speedily attended 

 to the poisoning by karaka quickly proved fatal ; and even in those few 

 cases in which I have known natives to recover very likely it was more 

 owing to the small quantity of the poison received into the system, than 

 to the means used as internal remedies. As the sufferers were invariably 

 little children, they were more easily dealt with ; and to prevent the limbs 

 becoming distorted, or stretched and rigid, a pit was quickly dug, into which 

 the child was placed in a standing posture, with its arms and legs bound in 

 their natural position, and the mouth gagged with a bit of wood to prevent the 

 sufferer biting its own tongue ; and there the child was left, buried up to its chin, 

 until the crisis had passed by; sometimes it was also plunged repeatedly into the 

 sea before being pitted. Fortunately the cases of karaka poisoning were but 

 few, owing, no doubt, to the hard texture and disagreeable taste of the karaka 

 kernel in its raw state ; very much fewer than those arising from the eating of 

 the sweet fruit of the tutu (GoriariaJ, which latter, howevei-, were more easily 

 managed by the natives. 



" The writer well recollects having seen at Wangarei (Bream Bay), in the 

 years 1836-9, a fine healthy youth of about 12 years of age, who had been 

 recovered from poisoning by karaka kernels. He, however, had not been 

 properly attended to, as to the tying of his limbs in their right position while 

 under the influence of the poison, and he was therefore now a curious spectacle, 

 reminding one of the instrument called a caltrops more than anything else. 

 One leg was curved up behind to his loins, and the other bent up in front with 

 the foot outwards ; one arm inclined behind his shoulder, and the other 



