same person, had played into each other’s hands, both knowing that neither could stand firm without the aid of the other.[7.2] [Sidenote: Superstitious respect for chiefs in Polynesia generally and in New Zealand particularly.] In Polynesia the state of things was similar. There, too, the power of chiefs depended largely on a belief in their supernatural powers, in their relation to ancestral spirits, and in the magical virtue of taboo, which pervaded their persons and interposed between them and common folk an invisible but formidable barrier, to pass which was death. In New Zealand the Maori chiefs were deemed to be living {8} _atuas_ or gods. Thus the Rev. Richard Taylor, who was for more than thirty years a missionary in New Zealand, tells us that in speaking a Maori chief “assumed a tone not natural to him, as a kind of court language; he kept himself distinct from his inferiors, eating separately; his person was sacred, he had the power of holding converse with the gods, in fact laid claim to being one himself, making the _tapu_ a powerful adjunct to obtain control over his people and their goods. Every means were used to acquire this dignity; a large person was thought to be of the highest importance; to acquire this extra size, the child of a chief was generally provided with many nurses, each contributing to his support by robbing their own offspring of their natural sustenance; thus, whilst they were half-starved, miserable-looking little creatures, the chief’s child was the contrary, and early became remarkable by its good appearance. Nor was this feeling confined to the body; the chief was an _atua_, but there were powerful and powerless gods; each naturally sought to make himself one of the former; the plan therefore adopted, was to incorporate the spirits of others with their own; thus, when a warrior slew a chief, he immediately gouged out his eyes and swallowed them, the _atua tonga_, or divinity, being supposed to reside in that organ; thus he not only killed the body, but also possessed himself of the soul of his enemy, and consequently the more chiefs he slew, the greater did his divinity become.… Another great sign of a chief was oratory--a good orator was compared to the _korimako_, the sweetest singing bird in New Zealand; to enable the young chief to become one, he was fed upon that bird, so that he might the better acquire its qualities, and the successful orator was termed a _korimako_.”[8.1] Again, another writer informs us that the opinions of Maori chiefs “were held in more estimation than those of others, simply because they were believed to give utterance to the thoughts of deified men. No dazzling pageantry hedged them round, but their persons were sacred.… Many of them believed themselves inspired; {9} thus Te Heu Heu, the great Taupo chief and priest, shortly before he was swallowed up by a landslip, said to a European missionary: ‘Think not that I am a man, that my origin is of the earth. I come