the volume of their lore is amazing, and is an example of the power of the human memory when assiduously cultivated.  Very great care was, of course, taken to hand it down from father to son in the priestly families.  In certain places in New Zealand, notably at Wanganui, sacred colleges stood called Whare-kura (Red-house).  These halls had to be built by priestly hands, stood turned to the east, and could only be approached by the purified.  They were dedicated by sacrifice, sometimes of a dog, sometimes of a human being.  The pupils, who were boys of high rank, went, at the time of admission, through a form of baptism.  The term of instruction lasted through the autumns and winters of five years.  The hours were from sunset to midnight.  Only one woman, an aged priestess, was admitted into the hall, and she only to perform certain incantations.  No one might eat or sleep there, and any pupil who fell asleep during instruction was at once thrust forth, was expected to go home and die, and doubtless usually did so.  Infinite pains were taken to impress on the pupils’ memories the exact wording of traditions.  As much as a month would be devoted to constant repetitions of a single myth.  They were taught the tricks of the priestly wizard’s trade, and became expert physiognomists, ventriloquists, and possibly, in some cases, hypnotists.  Public exhibitions afterwards tested the accuracy of their memories and their skill in witchcraft.  On this their fate depended.  A successful Tohunga, or wizard, lived on the fat of the land; a few failures, and he was treated with discredit and contempt.

Though so undoubted an authority as Mr. William Colenso sums up the old-time Maori as a secularist, it is not easy entirely to agree with him.  Not only had the Maori, as already indicated, an elaborate—­too elaborate—­mythology, but he had a code of equally wide and minute observances which he actually did observe.  Not only had he many gods both of light and evil, but the Rev. James Stack, a most experienced student, says that he conceived of his gods as something more than embodiments of power—­as beings “interested in human affairs and able to see and hear from the highest of the heavens what took place on earth.”  Mr. Colenso himself dwells upon the Maori faith in dreams, omens, and charms, and on the universal dread felt for kehuas or ghosts, and atuas or demon spirits.  Moreover, the code of observances aforesaid was no mere secular law.  It was the celebrated system of tapu (taboo), and was not only one of the most extraordinary and vigorous sets of ordinances ever devised by barbarous man, but depended for its influence and prestige not mainly upon the secular arm or even public opinion, but upon the injunction and support of unseen and spiritual powers.  If a man broke the tapu law, his punishment was not merely to be shunned by his fellows or—­in some cases—­plundered of his goods.  Divine vengeance in one or other form would swiftly fall upon him—­probably in the practical shape of the entry into his body of an evil spirit to gnaw him to death with cruel teeth.  Men whose terror of such punishment as this, and whose vivid faith in the imminence thereof, were strong enough to kill them were much more, or less, than secularists.