(M163) But when it becomes necessary to crop the hair, measures are taken to lessen the dangers which are supposed to attend the operation. The chief of Namosi in Fiji always ate a man by way of precaution when he had had his hair cut. “There was a certain clan that had to provide the victim, and they used to sit in solemn council among themselves to choose him. It was a sacrificial feast to avert evil from the chief.”(914) This remarkable custom has been described more fully by another observer. The old heathen temple at Namosi is called Rukunitambua, “and round about it are hundreds of stones, each of which tells a fearful tale. A subject tribe, whose town was some little distance from Namosi, had committed an unpardonable offence, and were condemned to a frightful doom. The earth-mound on which their temple had stood was planted with the mountain _ndalo_ (arum), and when the crop was ripe, the poor wretches had to carry it down to Namosi, and give at least one of their number to be killed and eaten by the chief. He used to take advantage of these occasions to have his hair cut, for the human sacrifice was supposed to avert all danger of witchcraft if any ill-wisher got hold of the cuttings of his hair, human hair being the most dangerous channel for the deadliest spells of the sorcerers. The stones round Rukunitambua represented these and other victims who had been killed and eaten at Namosi. Each stone was the record of a murder succeeded by a cannibal feast.”(915) Amongst the Maoris many spells were uttered at hair-cutting; one, for example, was spoken to consecrate the obsidian knife with which the hair was cut; another was pronounced to avert the thunder and lightning which hair-cutting was believed to cause.(916) “He who has had his hair cut is in immediate charge of the Atua (spirit); he is removed from the contact and society of his family and his tribe; he dare not touch his food himself; it is put into his mouth by another person; nor can he for some days resume his accustomed occupations or associate with his fellow-men.”(917) The person who cuts the hair is also tabooed; his hands having been in contact with a sacred head, he may not touch food with them or engage in any other employment; he is fed by another person with food cooked over a sacred fire. He cannot be released from the taboo before the following day, when he rubs his hands with potato or fern root which has been cooked on a sacred fire; and this food having been taken to the head of the family in the female line and eaten by her, his hands are freed from the taboo. In some parts of New Zealand the most sacred day of the year was that appointed for hair-cutting; the people assembled in large numbers on that day from all the neighbourhood.(918) Sometimes a Maori chief’s hair was shorn by his wife, who was then tabooed for a week as a consequence of having touched his sacred locks.(919) It is an affair of state when the king of Cambodia’s hair is cropped.