164 
TAPU. 
severely wounded. I attended and bound up his wounds ; 
my hands were covered with his blood, they would not allow 
me to go to the stream and wash, or use a calabash of water 
which stood near, but one of the attendants poured water 
from it upon my hands without permitting me to touch it, 
lest it should be made tapu ; the bloody rags also were care- 
fully carried to a wahi tapu and there deposited. 
Places were tapu for certain periods ; rivers until the fishing 
was ended; cultivations until the planting or reaping was 
completed ; districts until either the hunting of the rat or 
catching of birds was done ; woods until the fruit of the kie- 
kie was gathered. The tapu may be considered as having 
been of two kinds, private and public; the one affecting 
individuals, the other communities. A person became tapu 
by touching a dead body, or, by being very ill ; in this re- 
spect it appears to bear a close resemblance to the Mosaic 
law relating to uncleanness. 
The garments of an ariki, or high chief, were tapu, as 
well as everything relating to him ; they could not be worn 
by any one else, lest they should kill him. An old chief in 
my company threw away a very good mat because it was 
too heavy to carry, he cast it down a precipice, when I in- 
quired why he did not leave it suspended on a tree, that 
any future traveller wanting a garment might take it ? He 
gravely told me that it was the fear of its being taken by 
another, which had caused him to throw it where he did, for 
if it were worn, his tapu would kill the person. In the same 
way, Taunuf’s tinder box, which he lost, killed several 
who were so unfortunate as to find it, and light their 
pipes from it, without knowing it belonged to so sacred an 
owner; they actually died from fright. If the blood of a 
high chief flows on anything, though it be a single drop, it 
renders that tapu ; a party of natives came to see Te Heuheu, 
the great chief of Taupo, in a fine large new canoe ; Te 
Heuheu got into it to go a short distance, in doing so he 
struck a splinter in his foot, the blood flowed from the 
wound into the canoe, which at once tapued it to him ; the 
owner immediately jumped out, and dragged it on shore. 
