TOHUNGAISM.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1745, 25 October 1917, Page 2

TOHUNGAISM.

NATIVE FINED AT GISBORNE. Gisborne, Oct. 23. An elderly Native named Ramiera Tarairi was fined £25, and £9 7s costs, by Mr Barton, S.M.,_ to-day, on a charge under the Tohunga, Suppression Act. The charge arose out of a recent attempt at suicide by a Native,' who alleged that defendant had bewitched him. Amusing evidence was given by the Native witnesses. The wife of the man who attempted suicide said she was under defendant’s treat- } inept at Napier. He commanded her to return to Gisborne, pour boiling water in her boxes to exor- ■ cise spirits, and-on reaching Gisborne to spit on the sand and draw her left heel through the spittle. Other Natives gave evidence that defendant, when consulted for various ills, made the sign of the cross over them, and prayed for them. They described him as a man of prayer, and. said that at the meeting-house he prayed night and morning. Mr Burnard, who appeared for the defendant, urged that there was little diffei’enee in these accounts of defendant’s acts and in what is done in the orthodox methods of Christianity. The Magistrate fixed the penalty for default period at two months: - ' ’