A GRUESOME CUSTOM. TO THE EDITOR.

Evening Post, Volume LIII, Issue 101, 30 April 1897, Page 2

A GRUESOME CUSTOM. TO THE EDITOR.

Sir— l enclose you a Blip from the Otago Witness of the 15th instant, referring to an old Maori custom known as Te Hahunga— exhuming of bodies, and scraping the bones previous to their being taken to their final resting place. That it is necessary to put an end to such ghoul-like customs, the following I think will prove. In the year 1849 a chief of the then great Popoto tribe at Hokianga died, when the tohungas (priests) decided to bury the body instead of exposing it on a high platform to the sun and weather till the flesh had wasted away, as the bees used to visit bodies thus exposed in large numbers, and it horrified the natives to think they rnifclit eat houey and wax made from deceased's relations. Personally I am not able to tell why bees were attracted in this way ; I only mention the fact. The chief was duly buried, and in a few months' time the hahunga took place. Twenty men (among whom was our cook, Pirougia). headed by Hohaia te Rarau, formed the tapued party. The body was taken up, and the bones duly scraped and painted with shark oil and red ochre, and then conveyed to their wahi tapu, or sacred place. About a fortnight after the whole party were stricken down by some malignant disease, and, with the exception of Pirougia, died raving mad, first being reduced to skeletons. Pirougia recovered, and was nursed by us. The others were confined by their friends in small manuka-staked enclosures, where they were fed on kumeras and potatoes passed in to them on long toi-toi

reeds. Only those who attended the hahunga fell ill and died. This is by no means an isolated case. I have heard of several others, but it is time suoh a horrible and dangerous rite was put an end to. I am, &c, Thos. M'Donneh. Levin, 20th April, 1897. The following is the paragraph above referred to.— "The old Maori custom of hahunga, or the exhuming of bodies for scraping and tangiing, is being interfered with by the police at Kaikohe, Bay of Islands, and the natives in tbat district are much incensed thereat. Four natives have been summoned at Kaikohe for exhuming the bodies of deceased, relatives without permission from the Colonial Secretary under the Cemeteries Act, 1882."