Though the New Zealanders do not assemble together at stated times to worship their gods, they are in the habit of praying to them in all their emergencies.  Thus, when Korro-korro met his aunt, as before related, his brother Tooi informed Nicholas that the ejaculations the old woman uttered as she approached were prayers to the divinity.  When Korro-korro urged Marsden to take his son with him to Port Jackson, and was told by that gentleman that he was afraid to do so lest the boy should die, as so many of his countrymen had done when removed from their native island, the chief replied, that he would pray for his son during his absence, as he had done for his brother Tooi when he was in England, and then he would not die.

Tupee,[BQ] too, another of the Bay of Islands chiefs, Marsden tells us, used to pray frequently.  When that gentleman lay sick in his cot, on the voyage home from his first visit to New Zealand, Tupee, who was with him, used to sit by his side, and, laying his hands on different parts of his body, addressed himself all the while with great devotion to his god, in intercession for his friend’s recovery.

The priests, or tohungas, as they are called, are persons of great importance and authority in New Zealand, being esteemed almost the keepers and rulers of the gods themselves.

Many of the greatest of the chiefs and Areekees are also priests, as was, for example, Tupee, whom we have just mentioned.  It is the priest who attends at the bedside of the dying chief, and regulates every part of the treatment of the patient.  When the body of a chief who has been killed in battle is to be eaten, it is the priest who first gives the command for its being roasted.  The first mouthfuls of the flesh, also, being regarded as the dues of the gods, are always eaten by the priest.  In the case of any public calamity, it is the priest whose aid is invoked to obtain relief from heaven.

Marsden states that on occasion of the caterpillars one year making great ravages among the crops of sweet potatoes at Rangheehoo,[BR] the people of that place sent to Cowa-Cowa[BS] for a great priest to avert the heavy judgment; and that he came and remained with them for several months, during which he employed himself busily in the performance of prayers and ceremonies.  The New Zealanders also

consider all their priests as a species of sorcerers, and believe they have the power to take the lives of whomsoever they choose by incantation.  Themorangha,[BT] one of the most enlightened of the chiefs, came one day to Marsden, in great agitation, to inform him that a brother chief had threatened to employ a priest to destroy him in this manner, for not having sold to sufficient advantage an article which he had given him to dispose of.  “I endeavoured,” says Marsden, “to convince him of the absurdity of such a threat; but to no purpose; he still persisted that he should die, and that the priest possessed that