172 
TAPU. 
ently so, lie sends a young man to see if the report be favor- 
able, the rahue is then pulled down ; this removes the tapu, 
and the entire population go to “ takahi” or trample the 
wood ; all have liberty to gather the fruit, but it is cus- 
tomary to present some of the 'finest to the chief owner. 
When Te Heuheu and nearly sixty of his tribe were over- 
whelmed by a landslip, with the village of te Rapa, where 
they resided, the spot was kept for a long time strictly 
tapu, and no one allowed to set foot on it; determined to 
make the effort, as several who were Christians had lost 
their lives in the general destruction, I told the natives I 
should go and read the burial service over them ; viewing me 
as a tohunga or priest, they did not dare to offer any oppo- 
sition. I went on the sacred spot, under which the entire 
population of a village laid entombed, and there read the 
burial service, the natives standing on the verge of the ruin, 
and surrounding heights. 
It is evident therefore that the tapu arises from the will of 
the chief ; that by it he laid a ban upon whatever he felt 
disposed. It was a great power, which could at all times be 
exercised for his own advantage, and the maintenance of his 
mana , or dignity, which in some respects corresponded with 
manorial rights ; frequently he would make some trifling 
circumstance the reason for putting a whole community to 
great inconvenienience, rendering a road to the pa, perhaps 
the most direct and frequented, a grove, fountain, or any- 
thing else, tapu, by his arbitrary will. Without the tapu, he 
was only he tangata noa , a common man ; this feeling long 
deterred many high chiefs from embracing Christianity. 
Few but the ariki, or great tohungas, claimed the power 
of the tapu ; inferior ones, indeed, occasionally used it, but 
its observance was chiefly confined to their own retainers, 
and was often disregarded with impunity, or avoided by 
giving a small utu or payment, but he who presumed to 
violate that of an ariki, did it at the risk of his life and 
property. 
The tapu in many instances was beneficial; considering 
the state of society, absence of law, and fierce character ‘of 
