TREATMENT OF CHILDREN. 
82 
garment in which they are rolled up adds no little 
to their discomfort. Should their natural suste- 
nance fail from the breast, and no other woman be 
willing to give them suck, they must perish with 
hunger, as the natives do not possess any food 
which an infant can swallow: and they often 
have a superstitious objection to giving a young 
child any thing but its mother's milk, lest, by feed- 
ing the child, the death of the mother should be 
caused. Large holes, moreover, are slit in the 
lobe of the ear of the infant, and a stick, half an 
inch in diameter, is thrust through : it is kept un- 
healed for months, and every day is stretched, that 
it may eventually be able to wear suspended 
from thence some of their various ornaments. 
At five days old, but more frequently at eight, 
according to their ancient customs, the children 
of the New Zealanders are baptized; at which 
ceremony there is always much feasting. The 
child is baptized by a priest; and should there 
not be one residing in the village where the 
infant was born, messengers are despatched to 
distant villages, to procure the services of an 
old-established priest; who is rewarded for the 
offices which he renders, and returns home well 
satisfied with his fees. The baptismal ceremony 
is generally performed as follows ; though, in dif- 
ferent tribes, there is a difference in some parti- 
culars. When the infant has reached the age of 
five or eight days, it is carried in the arms of a 
woman to the side of a stream, and is then by her 
