E—No. 7

LECTURES ON My fire is burning To the big sea, to the long sea To'the boisterous sea. Then he returns, and while eating, lest he who cursed him should have bewitched his food, he repeats silently :— Stand erect before the world of spirits That the soul of food maybe eaten, And the essence of food —the food of the gods. This completes the charm against the offender ; he is now doomed to certain death, and that the cause of it may be known, the spirit of the sorcerer will appear bodily at his funeral ; the lelatives then seeing and recognising it will go to a running stream, and, sitting on its brink, repeat this incantation: — Our protector will destroy his power He will protect from death, Go thou evil one, to the heaven above, Go thou to the earth beneath. This charm precludes any future sorcery being exercised against the remainder of the family. Occasionally, however, instead of all these ceremonies, the priest, when cursed, will lay his left hand on the right sideofhis breast, and with the right hand catch the curse, saying aloud, " Aue taku upoko" (O, my head!), for on the head dwell the principal gods ; and they are thus called to punish the offender with death. Before we give any specimens of the Native Doctor's craft we may be allowed to remark, that he has more to encounter than falls to theshareof any European Physician: he not only requires a larger amount of faith in the efficacy of his own incantations, but he has to contend in every instance with that which a European doctor would pronounce not only the cause of sickness but sure to result in death. A New Zealand patient will not remain in a house in the settlement ; he will reside in a shed by himself in the sctub, a shed that cannot shelter him from the evening breeze, much less keep out the dew of night or the rain ; he will also (if he eats at all, which is not often the case,) have whatever he may wish, in fact he is led by his appetite alone ; if he has a fever he will go and bathe ; if he is consumptive he will do the same. In many cases the Maori Doctor had recourse to certain leaves, and the bark of trees, to assist his incantations ; for a burn he used the inner bark of the Rimu bruised into a pulp, or the ashes of the Tussac grass, sprinkled on the burn; for dysentery the Kawakawa root was chewed. About six years ago, when the influenza was very rife in the North, one of the Maori doctors gave out that he had found a cure for the headsplitting disease as it was called : it was a compound of roots, bark, and leaves of trees, with certain shrubs burnt together, the ashes of which were kneaded into a paste with hogs' lard ; this he sold to his countrymen in balls the size of a common marble, charging £1 10s. for each. They were bought with avidity by timid persons, who, when they felt the least pain, in whatever part of the body it might be, made an incision in that part and rubbed a portion of the compound into it. It was astonishing to see how many cures were effected by it amongst those in whose imagination alone the disease had existed. After a Maori doctor has made himself acquainted with the complaint of his patient, he decides as to the remedy ; if he is suffering from the effects of witchcraft, he takes him to a stream, and sprinkles his naked body with water, repeating the following incam tation over him :— Rise all ye powers of this earth, And let me see the gods, Now I am roaming o'er the ear* h, May the gods be prevented Prom cutting and maiming this man; 0 thou god of the wizard. When thou descendest to the .vorld below, To thy many, to thy thousands And they ask who required thee there, Say Whiro the thief, come back then ; And we shall find thee, —we shall see thee When thou goest inland. Or to the ocean, or above; And the thousands there ask thee , Tell them the same Go thou even at day dawn When the night's last darkness is Hide thyself in it, and go, Go thou, but the skull of the wizard shall be mine To cut and to tear it, To destroy its power and its sacredness Cut off the head of the god ! They then return to the settlement; the patient, now being more sacred than ever, is not to eat for three days, at the expiration of which he is supposed to be cured. The following is to give sight to the blind :—The priestly physician ties around his own waist the twigs of the Kawakawa and Karamu as an apron, and standing in front of his patient, who is sitting up, he waves a branch of one or other of the same shrubs before the man's face, saying : — Thou sun now coming Red in thy coming—give light here, Thou moon, now comi'-g In thy flight look o- ■ !ii« man, Now dimly seeing the gods are moving Welcome come ye forth, From thy eye-balls the red waters cornGive light, give strength ; Give life—life now come.