THE DEATH-DEALING TOKUNGA.

Feilding Star, Volume I, Issue 278, 29 May 1907, Page 2

THE DEATH-DEALING TOKUNGA.

i*AD CASE IN THE WAIKATO. [By Telegraph.] (Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, May 28. News has reached Wellington from reliable sources of strange doi rungs ou the part of a Maori tohunga at a little village near Atiamuri. Some time ago a Maori girl, who was ill, was placed under the treatment of this tohunga. The first thing the ignorant old man did was to put the child for the greater part of a night in a cold creek that ran past nis whare. Then she was taken into the whare and beaten all over with sticks. The object of the beating with sticks was to drive the evil spirits out of her body. A European who chanced to go into the whare afterwards said the child's body was covered with hruises. When he came upon the scene, the tohunga was gripping his patient round the throat, to keep the devils that he had beaten out from re-entering her body. The visitor seized the tohunga and flung him across the whare. The child died the next day. No inquest was held. At this same village , another girl is now being slowly done to death by the old tohunga. She is a half-caste, and a little while ago she was a very ! pretty child. In this case, the tohunga' "treatment" consists mainly in feeding her on strips of raw pork. People who have seen her recently state that the girl is in a pitiable state. Probably it is not yet too late to save her life if the authorities take prompt action, and the old tohunga gets his deserts. These statements are made to me by reputable persons, with a view to their publicity in the interests of common humanity.