OP NEW ZEALAND. 
85 
for taking life away. A man who has touched a 
very young child, or has approached a corpse, 
or has rendered the last sad offices of friendship 
for a friend, is strictly tapued for several days; 
and is not allowed to touch food with his hands, 
nor in any way to feed himself, but by picking up 
his sustenance from the ground with his lips and 
teeth. At the time of planting the kumera (con- 
volvulus batatas), or sweet potato, all who are en- 
gaged in the work, either in digging or preparing 
the ground, or sorting the seed, are under pre- 
cisely the same restrictions. The land itself is 
also made sacred ; and no person, but he who has 
been tapued for the purpose, is allowed to place 
his foot near the spot, or to pluck up the weeds 
which grow rankly around the roots of the vege- 
table. In their great fishing-expeditions for 
mackarel, all concerned in making or mending 
the nets, the ground upon which those nets are 
made, the river upon the banks of which the 
work goes on, are all in a state of sacredness — 
no person is allowed to walk over the land ; no 
canoe or other vessel to pass up or down the 
river; no fire is allowed to be made within a 
prescribed distance ; no food to be prepared, until 
the tapu ceases, and the restrictions are taken 
off ; which is not till the net is finished and has 
been whetted with the sacred water, and till a fish 
has been taken and eaten by him to whom the 
net belongs. The strictest of their tapus are, 
however, connected with their dead, and with the 
