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Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 59, 3 December 1926, Page 5

The recent strange case of suspended animation, or postponed death, in a Alaori village at Wanganui, sends memory tagging back to sundry other curious instances of the soul’s stubborn refusal to part company with the body (says the “Auckland Star”). Many tears ago a Maori tohunga named Tihau enjoyed great popularity in the Waikato and thereabouts for his alleged success in bringing the dead back to life. At any rate he performed the feat in a quite astonishing manner on one occasion, when he caused an apparently dead girl to sit up and speak. There was a case near Wairoa, Hawke’s Bay, a few years ago, when a woman who had died clearly repented of her- rash decision, for she rose on her conch and interrupted the tangi by describing most vividly her journey to the Reinga, the Maori spiritland, and what she saw there. She was offered food to eat there, she said, but fortun■atcly she was not foolish enough to accept it, otherwise her “wairua,” her soul, would have remained there. But the most remarkable incident of all happened at a big tangi on the West Coast. Wiki, an aged chieftainess, had died, to all appearance, and the loud mourners were beside the bier. A surreptitious bottle of brandy was going the rounds among the members of the wake party of wahines. The corpse suddenly pushed away the mats and sat up. Stretching out her tatooed right hand, she made peremptory request: “Homai te wainiro!” Tn astounded silence the bottle was passed. Wiki took a long, long pull, sighed a deen gratified sigh, and sank gentlv back on her pillow Thev all said II was a beautiful death.

The advances made tn transportation bv means of motor-trucks were revealed by the passage of a sheep-laden lorrv along Taupo Quav on a recent afternoon ' (states the “Wanganui Chronicle”). Sheep on motor vehicles are common enough sights, but iu this case nn unusual touch was added by the fact that the but den consisted of three separate tiers About forty sheep were thus accommodated on the lorrv.