CUSTOMS RELATING TO THE DEAD. 
101 
Many, however, of the Taranaki natives had no faith either 
in the ascending or descending of spirits :* they thought that 
the dead always remained near their bodies. That the wahi 
tapu (sacred places), which are generally small groves, adjoin¬ 
ing their pas, in which they were interred, were also filled with 
their spirits ; but if a person died a violent death, he wandered 
about until the priest, by his spells, brought his spirit within 
the sacred enclosure. 
When a chief was killed in battle, and eaten, his spirit was 
supposed to enter the stones of the oven, with which his body 
had been cooked, which retained their heat so long as it re¬ 
mained in them. His friends repeated their most powerful 
spells to draw out his spirit from the stones, and bring it 
within the wahi tapu. 
So also, when any were slain in battle, the friends endea¬ 
voured to procure some of their blood, or fragments of their 
garments, if the body could not be obtained, over which they 
uttered a karakia, and thus brought the wandering soul within 
this spiritual fold. These places are still looked upon with 
much fear, as the spirits are thought occasionally to wander 
from them, and cause all the sickness their relatives suffer. In 
them the tuahu, or native altar, the toko and the pataka, or 
stage for offerings to the gods, were placed: it was thought to be 
extremely dangerous for the living to enter either them or the 
houses where the dead were buried; in almost every pa nearly 
half the houses belonged to the dead. When the owner died, 
and was buried in his house, it was left, with all it contained; 
the door was tied up, and painted with ochre, to show it 
was made tapu, and then no one ever entered it again. These 
abandoned houses, being in every stage of decay, gave a very 
* V' hakaeke, a karakia to facilitate the ascent of the spirit:— 
1 ei! tena te huri, 
Te huri ka whakarawe, 
Te huri e whano ai koe, 
Ki to tini, 
Ki to rnano, 
Ki to kauariki, 
Whakairi atu, 
To ara ki to rangi. 
Alas! this is the turning over. 
The severing the link of life. 
The turning over that you 
May join the many, 
The multitude, 
The ariki gone before. 
Ascend the road 
To heaven. 
