EATING. 
167 
is the prevailing disease of the Maori, and that they are great 
eaters of the eel.* 
The natives have only two meals a day, the first being about 
ten, the other at sun-set, or a little earlier. But frequently 
in those months when food is scarce, they have only one, and 
no other relish for their potatoes than a little sow-thistle, or 
wild cabbage. A native will endure hunger very patiently. 
Those who live with Europeans, after a little time, are not 
in general greater eaters than ourselves. 
Though extremely dirty in their persons, the natives are 
cleanly in their food, which is served up in baskets. These 
are neatly and expeditiously made by the females, whilst the 
food, is being cooked. Guests of rank have each his fresh- 
made basket set before him, and when the meal is over, they 
are thrown away and fresh ones made. One reason appears 
to have been, the fear of witchcraft, or of destroying their 
tapu, by eating out of a basket which had been used by some 
one else. A chief never ate after any one, or allowed any one 
to eat after him. The remains of his food, with the basket 
which contained them, was thrown into a wahi tapu, that no 
one might obtain any portion with which to bewitch him. 
Formerly they had the greatest dread of witchcraft by means 
of food. When a great chief or tohunga took his food, he 
might frequently be seen seated within a little fence of basket 
work, or else in a corner of the verandah, apart from the rest. 
In general, a basket is placed before every three or four per¬ 
sons ; it is filled with potatoes, garnished with a piece of meat, a 
fish, a bird, or in default of these, with a little sow-thistle or wild 
cabbage ; when there is meat, they pass it round, each taking a 
bite or tearing off a portion ; and when the meal is over, they 
wipe their greasy fingers on the backs of the attendant dogs, 
as their serviettes, whose noses are generally thrust into the 
basket as soon as the last hand is withdrawn.-f- 
* Deaths from feasting on the Pihapiharau, or Lamprey, are by no means 
uncommon. 
•f Vigne, in his travels in Cashmere, thus describes a meal given him by the 
Rajah of Tira, vol. 1, page 109 :—“They did not eat with me themselves, but 
a table was placed for me beside them, and they talked to me during the re- 
