TAPU. 
171 
given them. This custom particularly applied to remark- 
able rocks or trees, to which karakia was made, a little 
bundle of rushes was thrown as an offering to the spirit who 
was supposed to reside there,* and the sacred object was 
smeared over with red ochre. A similar custom prevailed 
when corpses were carried to their final place of interment. 
The friends of the dead either carved an image, which they 
frequently clothed with their best garments, or tied some of 
those of the dead to a neighbouring tree, or pole, or else 
painted some adjacent rock or stone, with red ochre, to 
which they gave the name of the dead ; and whenever they 
passed by, addressed it as though their friends were alive 
and present, using the most endearing expressions and cast- 
ing some fresh garments on the figure, as a token of their 
love. These were a kind of memorial idols. If a corpse was 
conveyed in a canoe it was never afterwards used, but 
painted red and drawn on shore. 
An inferior kind of tapu exists, which any one may use ; 
a person who finds a piece of drift timber, secures it for 
himself by tying something round it, or giving it a chop 
with his axe ; in a similar way he can appropriate to his 
own use whatever is naturally common to all. A person 
may thus stop up a road through his ground, and often leaves 
his property in exposed places, with merely this simple tohu 
or sign, to show it is private, and it is allowed to remain 
untouched, however many may pass that way ; so with a 
simple bit of flax a man secured the door of his house, 
containing all his valuables, or his food store, they were thus 
rendered inviolable and no one would meddle with them. 
The owner of a wood abounding with the kie kie, a much 
prized fruit, is accustomed to set up a pole to preserve it 
until the fruit be fully ripe ; when it is thought to be suffici- 
* Ka u ki mata nuku, 
Ka u ki mata rangi, 
Ka u ki o whenua, 
He whenua he tauhou, 
Hei kai mau, 
Te ate o te tauhou, 
Arrived at slippery point, 
Arrived at break of day, 
Arrived here O earth, 
The earth a stranger, 
As food for thee, 
The shadow of the stranger. 
