TAPU. 
59 
ou the point of being put to death, (as a return in kind tor our 
own narrow and barbarous policy to a native prisoner who was 
hung at Porirua,) when an old chief rushed forward, and threw 
his blanket over him ; the man was spared, and afterw aids was 
treated with great kidness, as though he were one of the tribe. 
Fomerlv every woman was noci, 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.* 
The power of the tapu, however, mainly depended on the 
influence of the individual who imposed it. If it were put on 
by a great chief, it would not be broken, but a powerful man 
often broke through the tapu of an inferior. A chief would 
frequently lay it on a road or river, so that no one could 
go by either, unless he felt himself strong enough to set the 
other at defiance. 
The duration of the tapu was arbitrary, and depended on 
the will of the person who imposed it; also the extent to 
which it applied. Sometimes it was limited to a particular 
object, at other times it embraced many; sometimes it was 
laid on one spot, at other times on an entire district. Some 
persons and places were always tapu, as an ariki or tohunga and 
their houses, so much so, that even their very owners could 
not eat in them; therefore all their meals were taken in the 
open air. The males could not eat with their wives, nor their 
wives with the male children, lest their tapu or sanctity should 
* A woman of rank would frequently be allowed to live with a slave tor a 
time, without her 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 com¬ 
mon Pakeka, who was tramping about in order that he might be said to have 
an European belonging to him ; but the chief of his tribe said they should 
soon take her away, and bestow her in marriage on a young man of rank. 
When this liason was formed against the father’s wish, and there was offspring, the 
grandfather frequently destroyed it. A chief of Rotoaira, only a few years 
ago, thus destroyed the illegitimate infant of his daughter by cruelly tying 
it up in a basket to one of the rafters of his house, and there leaving it to 
perish; the mother, ill from the loss of her child, came to me for medicine, 
but she did not seem to grieve for her infant’s death. 
