104( PUNISHMENTS IN NEW ZEALAND. 
has thus acted be the stronger, and able to defend 
his crop, he still invariably sends a portion of it 
to the party, as an acknowledgment that the land 
did indeed belong, originally, to that party. 
The punishments of the New Zealanders are 
not commonly severe. They strongly reprobate 
the punishments adopted by the white people, 
as extremely cruel. Theft, if persevered in, is 
sometimes visited with a severe blow from a 
stick or paddle across the head ; — the breach of 
a tapii, with the loss of property — cursing, 
* The following instance will illustrate both the strictness 
of the tapii, and the manner in which the disregard of it, in a 
work of mercy, was most strangely requited. — As I was one 
day coming up the Kerikeri river, I observed a large party of 
natives on the banks ; sounds of lamentation struck upon my 
ear ; and it was evident, from the appearance of the group, that 
something melancholy had happened. I immediately put up 
the helm, and made for the shore ; where I found that Tareha, 
a chief of great importance, was under a strict tapu ; so strict, 
that no one dared to touch him, nor to approach within a cer- 
tain distance of him. He had been eating cod-fish, and a bone 
had stuck in his throat. He was in a state of suffocation and 
of great agony, ^^o one, for fear of his own life, which would 
have been forfeit, had he touched the chief, would go near him. 
I immediately went up to the suffering man, and, after some 
little difficulty, succeeded in extracting the bone. I then sat 
down, and entered into conversation with the natives ; reason- 
ing with them upon the absurdity of their practices, which 
would allow a man to perish without rendering him assistance. 
When I had thus been engaged about half-an-hour, Tareha 
was so far recovered as to be able to speak : when, to my utter 
astonishment, the first words he uttered were a command to 
his people to take from me the instruments with which the 
bone had been extracted, as a payment for having drawn blood 
from him, and for touching his head when he was sacred. I 
however preserved my case of instruments ; and was suffered 
to depart scathless, though I had committed so great a crime 
