Most women are forbidden to eat human flesh, and so are some men and all young children. When the latter reach a certain age, they are permitted to become eaters of human flesh, and are inducted into their new privileges by the singing of chants and songs, the meaning of which none of the initiates understand, and which, it is probable, are equally a mystery to the priest himself who chants them. The palms of the hands and the breast are supposed to be the best parts; and some of the elder warriors, when they have overcome their reluctance to talk on a subject which they know will shock their interlocutors, speak in quite enthusiastic terms of human flesh as an article of food. That cannibalism is a custom which depends on warfare is evident from many sources. In war, as we shall presently see, the New Zealander can hardly be recognized as the same being in a state of peace. His whole soul is filled with but one idea--that of vengeance; and it is the spirit of revenge, and not the mere vulgar instinct of gluttony, that induces him to eat the bodies of his fellow-men. A New Zealander would not dream of eating the body of a man who had died a natural death, and nothing could be further from his thoughts than the deliberate and systematic cannibalism which disgraces several of the African tribes. How completely this spirit of vengeance enters into the very soul of the Maories can be inferred from a short anecdote of a battle. There is a small island in the Bay of Plenty called Tuhua, or Mayor’s Island, the inhabitants of which, about two hundred in number, had erected a strong pah, or fort, in order to defend themselves from the attacks of tribes who lived on the mainland, and wanted to capture this very convenient little island. The fort was built on a very steep part of the island, craggy, precipitous, and chiefly made up of lava. After making several unsuccessful attacks, the enemy at last made an onslaught in the night, hoping to take the people off their guard. The inmates were, however, awake and prepared for resistance; and as soon as the enemy attacked the pah, the defenders retaliated on them by allowing them to come partly up the hill on which the pah stands, and then rolling great stones upon them. Very many of the assailants were killed, and the rest retreated. Next morning the successful defenders related this tale to a missionary, and showed the spot where so sanguinary an encounter had taken place. The missionary, finding that all the stones and rocks were perfectly clean, and betrayed no traces of the bloody struggle which had taken place only a few hours previously, asked to be shown the marks of the blood. His guide at once answered that the women had licked it off. It has sometimes been stated that the Maories will kill their slaves in order to furnish a banquet for themselves; but such statements are altogether false.