TAPUS OP NEW ZEALAND. 
88 
scarcely ever from under restrictions. They are 
sent for upon all particular occasions; and not 
to attend upon the calls of those who would thus 
honour them, would be to lower their dignity and 
importance in the sight of the people. After the 
completion of some special work, I have known the 
‘‘poapoa,” or sacred food, to be carried on a spear 
upwards of sixty miles, in order that it might be 
eaten by some great man, and that he may be- 
come tapued, as an honour to himself and to the 
circumstance out of which the tapu arose. The 
person who carries this food is not allowed to eat 
or drink, whatever may be his wants, or however 
long the journey, till he has laid his sacred burden 
at the feet of him by whom it is to be devoured. 
I have met them fainting by the way, and not 
daring to come near any refreshment, much less 
to partake of it. I have, however, at times, suc- 
ceeded in my attempts to cause them to break 
through this ridiculous custom. I have opened 
my own box, and fed them with my own food ; 
they satisfying themselves that it was no breach 
of the tapu, because they were fed by a European, 
and it was European food of which they partook. 
In considering the general character of their 
tapus, the distress in which it involves them, the 
dreadful crimes to which it sometimes leads, and 
— though ridiculed by the more sensible among 
them, and by these observed only for political 
purposes — the hold it has upon the heart, the 
affections, or the fears, of the great majority, we 
