ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. MAORI SUPERSTITIONS.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 555, 9 August 1851, Page 3

ORIGINAL CORRESPONDENCE. MAORI SUPERSTITIONS.

To the Editor of the Mur Zualandee. Sin — We have frequently- heard of the superstitious of the natives of these Islands, "but as yet have seen few of them iv print j pet haps the following may be not uninteicsting to your leaders. — If a star ia seen near the moon, it is regarded as a sure sign of war. If a weaned child cry without any apparent cause, and without shedding teArs, it is called a tangi patua, and is a sure sign or death; they suppose that it is the spirit which is crying over the hody it is so soon to le.we. If a hangi (native oven), nfter the food is in it, and covered up, makes a report like that of a gun, it is a sign that some one of. the head men of the tribe is about to die. Should a piece of fern or stick catch between the toes of a native as he is journeying, he will have, upon his arrival at the next settlement, as much food as he can eat. When, journeying in a cmoe alone, if in put'injj the paddle from one side to the other the paddle should come into the canoe, it indicates also the «>ame Rood fortune. If a man who has a wife, in fishing, hook a fish in the stomach, it is regarded as a sign that his wife has eloped. It, when a lover is sitting near the fire, a spark should fly out at him, he will not gain the object of his affection". Jl an owl cry on the end ol an inhabited hut, nn ambush is near. It is believed that when the inhabitants of a settlement aiv destined to be killed by another true, an Atna (spiiit) iv the night, crys "A"« Into ha lolo" (Blood, blood.) There is a bird called " Pie," which, if it cry inland of the peison or persons {who may hear it, it is a sign of a war-party coming from that direction ; if it should cry on the sea side ol the hectors, then tho*c who hear it, art 1 in a shoit time to have a present of fish Should a person's chin itch, that peison is to have a feast or eels, do£, rat, or something of an oily tiattuc. A we<ithcr gale is called "w huiri," which is a pod, and when seen is a sign of war in th.it direction. Lightning, without thunder, denotes war in the quaver from whence it flashes. It is believed tl'at when a person dies of the dropsy, and any one afterwards living in the same settlement will catch the disease: Your constant reader, John White. Auckland, July 30, 1351.