E—No. 7

wife had died, and a short time previous to her death, he (Pita) had quarrelied with the old man about land, and therefore he threw the blame of her death upon his grandfather's incantations; and on this supposition he shot him. All these cases were spoken of by the majority of the Maori people as just, and as such the murderers were not thought the less of by their own tribes. I will make but little comment upon these facts: they speak for themselves, and call upon us by those feelings of pity and national benevolence for which England's sons in every land have been so noted, to assist in enlightening the ignorance and alleviating the consequent misery of so many of our fellow mortals. Surely, being sons of such ancestors as ours were, we love to worship that God whom they served and to reverence His name; can we not devise some plan to assist the Ministers and help them on in the work of our Lord, so that these Satanic customs and superstitions may cease for ever, and such acts may not again be perpetrated in the very precincts of our city, endangering the whole community. Even if we take the lowest ground (the eternal danger of the actors in such scenes being left out), many men, who look upon the present moral condition of the Maori race and see how strong a hold their heathenish and barbarous customs yet retain upon them, are tempted to conclude that the efforts of our Missionaries for forty years have been of little avail in christianizing the people; but the Maori is an observant race, and they will compare practice with precept. When the Europeaninhabitants of New Zealand were only scattered individuals, then Missionary teaching,supported by example, had its full effect; the sin or the profanity of an individual produced but little impression on the Maori mind, for they knew that amongst themselves also there were evil men as well as good ; but it is to the wickedness of our community that we must attribute the revival of heathenism. They have been taught to keep the Sabbath day holy, and they come into our streets and see it constantly profaned by drunkenness and other evils, and they turn and say to us: "England sent first her Missionaries, they shewed us the wickedness of our old evil ways, we believed them, and we put away the evil from us; but now England sends her people, and we see more sin amongst them than was ever in the midst of us; we had no marriage rite, yet were more faithful and moral than you who are bound with a vow in God's presence; it is your example, as a nation, that has taught us to revert to our old customs." Christian nations have amongst themselves a standard by which they are judged and weighed ; a christian people in the presence of a heathen race, are watched more closely still, and their example is of still greater influence ; it is by our example as a people, that we can the most surely help forward the work of the Almighty, and certainly He will not fail to visit us accordingly, for "righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is the destruction of many people." We will now give the ceremonies and incantations of witchcraft. As we have before stated, there are many degrees of a M aori curse, and this being mostly the cause of a person being bewitched, a few specimens of them will not be out of place. There are three principal degrees, viz.: the "kanga," the superlative curse, as " Upoko kohua," (skull to cook in) or " Upoko Taona," (cooked head) ; the " Apiti," as " To upoko ko taku ipu wai," (your head is the calabash from which I drink) ; " Ko taku tirou kai o wheua," (my fork is your bones). The distinction between these two degrees may not be at first glance visible to many present; the " kanga" is an actual wish that the devoted man may be eaten ; the " Apiti," (or literal comparison), is only likening of the bones to a fork, and the skull to a calabash. There is also the lower degree " Tapatapa," which is by calling the name of any animal or thing after a person ; for instance, prompted by feelings of loyalty, we call our ships after our beloved Queen, which is to a Maori a "Tapatapa," which blood alone could atone for: and what to him. is still worse, is, that the very sixpence which we give for a loaf of bread bears on it the likeness of our Queen ; this is utterly unintelligible to his superstitious mind, that we who are so wise should sell the likeness of our Queen for cooked food, a curse upon her sufficient to require the lives of a nation to atone. The curse of tapatapa is very frequently taken advantage of by a covetous chief, to seize on anything belonging to a slave, such as a canoe, a spear, or mat, a fine dog-, or a fat pig; all that was required to deprive the slave of his property was, any chief should call it after himself or any of his limbs, when the owner must surrender it. We have said before that it was not sufficient to avenge the insult of a curse, its effects also must be expiated. The ceremonies used for this purpose by the Natives differed according to the several degrees we have defined above, of kanga, apiti, and tapatapa. If the malediction were by kanga, then the priest would go with the man who had been thus cursed (each unclad), to a running stream, and making mounds of earth beside it, the priest sticks a twig of Tangeo into the bank, then they immerse themselves in the water, the priest repeating tnis incantation while the gods are supposed to come and rest upon the mounds and dance upon the twig thus set up: — " Now are the mounds made, On the side of the dark stream, By the place of thy wanderings, and of thy curse It is made this evening By the darkness of this hill, By the shade of these gods. Now stands the twig by the mound, By the place of theft, by the wanderings, By the incantations from Hawaiki. It is the twig of revenge, To hurry onward my power, The impetuous power of these sons Emblem of the gods and their power. Now is the power of this incantation, Of these sons and of these emblems; The water is flowing to this place of sorcery, It flows on to this sacred spot. To the head of strength, to the root, On the surface and to the gods of theft,