MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 September 1940, Page 9

MAORI MEMORIES

CURSES (Kanga). by J.H.S., of Palmerston North, for the “Times-Age.”) To every Maori, the Kanga (curse), was an element of deadly fear, 'the origin of which is obscure. Among these simple people it probably originated in a rare case where the result accidentally coincided with the threat of an angered Ariki (High Priest). The word Kanga (pronounced Kaanga) is seldom used, because of its danger. I saw its effect in a well known case at Hawera in 1904. During a football match between the members of two tribes played at Okaiawa, a collision occurred, when an injured player angrily exclaimed “Upoko Kohua" (may your head be boiled in a pot). The victim of the curse left the field, rode at a furious pace to his whare at Taipcrohe nui, went inside and remained there without food or drink for a week, when he died. A post mortem failed to discover the cause of death. Apiti. usually translated as a river's gorge, another deadly form of the greatly feared Kanga generally refers to cooked food or utensils, such as “I will drink from your Anaanga" (skull) oi' “Make a fork of your bone" (iwi). The steam (Korohu) rising from the bare skin of men at work was referred to by an onlooker as steam from an oven (umul. This insult or curse, because it referred to cooking, led to a tribal war in which many lives were lost.

Another strange curse was that given by a trumpet (pukaea) sounding “to ro ro, To ro ro” (your brains, your brains).

Occasionally an influential priest