60 
TAPU. 
kill them. If a chief took a fancy for anything belonging to 
another who was inferior, he made it tapu for himself, by 
calling it his backbone: and thus put, as it were, his broad 
arrow upon it. A chief anxious to obtain a fine large canoe 
belonging to an inferior who had offended him, merely called 
it by his own name, and then his people went and took it. 
If a chief wished to hinder any one from going to a parti¬ 
cular place, or by a particular road, he made it tapu. During 
the disturbances between the Government and the natives, 
they tapued the sea coast, and would not permit any Europeans 
to travel that way, and so compelled some of the highest 
functionaries to retrace their steps. 
Some years ago, a German missionary located himself at 
Motu Karamu, a pa up the Mokan; the greater part of the 
natives there, with their head chief, Te Kuri, were mem¬ 
bers of the Church of Rome; but his head wife, however, 
became his warm patron. When the priest arrived there on his 
way down the river, he scolded Te Kuri for suffering an here¬ 
tical missionary to become located in his district, and applied 
many opprobrious epithets to the intruder. This very much 
incensed the chief’s lady; she said her teacher should not be 
abused, and therefore next morning, when his reverence was 
preparing to continue bis journey, she made the river tapu, 
and to his annoyance, there was not a canoe to be found which 
dare break it; after storming for some time he was obliged to 
return by the way he came, the lady saying it would teach him to 
use better language another time, and not insult her minister. 
To render a place tapu, the chief tied one of his old gar¬ 
ments to a pole, and stuck it up on the spot he intended to be 
sacred. This he either called by his own name, saying it was 
some part of his body, as te Heuheu made the mountain Ton- 
gariro sacred, by speaking of it as his back-bone, or he gave 
it the name of one of his tupuna, or ancestors, then all 
descended from that individual were bound to see the tapu 
maintained, and the further back the ancestors went, the greater 
number of persons were interested in keeping up the tapu, as 
the credit and influence of the family was at stake, and all 
were bound to revenge any infringement of it. 
