TAl’U. 
G3 
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 generally it is allowed to remain untouched, how¬ 
ever many may pass that way ; so with a simple bit of flax, 
the door of a man’s house, containing all his valuables, is left, 
or his food store ; they are thus rendered inviolable and no one 
will 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 sufficiently so, he sends a young man to see if the report 
be favorable ; 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 customary 
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 for a long time kept strictly tapu, 
and no one was allowed to set foot on it. I was determined to 
make the effort, and 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 opposition. 
I went on the sacred spot, under which the entire population 
of a village laid entombed, and there I read the burial service, 
the neighbouring natives standing on the verge of the ruin, 
and on the 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 power ; frequently making some trifling circumstance, 
the reason of putting a whole community to great inconveni¬ 
ence, rendering a road to the pa, perhaps the most direct and 
frequented, or a grove, or a fountain, or anything else, tapu, 
by his arbitrary will. Without the tapu, he was only “ he 
