TAPU. 
167 
peated a long karakia, and performed certain rites over 
them. If any one wished to preserve his crop, house, gar- 
ments, or anything else, he made them tapu ; a tree which 
had been selected in the forest for a canoe, a patch of raupo 
in a swamp, which an individual might wish to appropriate 
to himself, and which he could not then conveniently do, 
was rendered tapu to him by tying a band round the former, 
with a little grass in it, or sticking up a pole in the latter 
with a similar bunch attached. 
If a person had been taken prisoner in war, and a feel- 
ing of pity arose in the breast of one of his captors, though 
it may have been the general determination to put him to 
death, the desire of the merciful individual would prevail, 
by throwing his garment over him ; he who then touched 
the prisoner with a hostile intention touched also his pre- 
server. An instance of this kind occurred during the 
late war at Wanganui : one of the inhabitants was cap- 
tured by the hostile natives, he was on the point of being 
put to death, as a return in kind for our own narrow and 
barbarous policy to a native prisoner who was hung at Pori- 
rua, when an old chief rushed forward, and threw his blanket 
over him, the man was spared, and afterwards treated with 
great kindness, as though he were one of the tribe. 
Formerly every woman was noa, or common, and could 
select as many companions as she liked, without being 
thought guilty of any impropriety, until given away by her 
friends to some one as her future master ; she then became 
tapu to him, and was liable to be put to death if found 
unfaithful. 
A woman of rank would frequently be allowed to live with 
a slave for a time, without being considered as belonging to 
him longer than she might feel disposed to remain, or until 
her friends might dispose of her to one of suitable rank. Te 
Heuheu allowed his young daughter to live with a common 
Pakeka who was tramping about, in order that he might be 
said to have an European belonging to him ; the chiefs of 
his tribe said they should soon take her away, and bestow 
her in marriage on a young man of rank, When this liason 
