“If a chief or his wife fall sick, the most influential tohunga, or a woman who has the odor of sanctity, attends, and continues day and night with the patient, sometimes repeating incantations over him, and sometimes sitting before the house and praying. The following is an incantation which is said by the priest as a cure for headache. He pulls out two stalks of the _Pteris esculenta_, from which the fibres of the root must be removed, and, beating them together over the head of the patient, says this chant.”--The chant in question is as unintelligible as those which have already been mentioned. Its title is “A prayer for the dead (_i. e._ the sick man) when his head aches: to Atua this prayer is prayed, that he, the sick man, may become well.” When a chief is ill, his relations assemble near the house and all weep bitterly, the patient taking his part in the general sorrowing; and when all the weeping and mourning has been got out of one village, the patient is often carried to another, where the whole business is gone over again. Should the sick person be of an inferior class, he goes off to the bush, and remains there until he is well again, choosing the neighborhood of a hot spring if he can find one, or, if no such spring is at hand, infusing certain herbs in boiling water and inhaling the steam. As may be imagined from the practice which they have in cutting up the dead for their cannibal feasts, the Maories are good practical anatomists, and know well the position of all the principal organs and vessels of the body. Consequently, they can operate in cases of danger, using sharp-edged shells if they have no knives. They can also set broken limbs well, bringing the broken surfaces together, binding the limb with splints, laying it on a soft pillow, and surrounding it with a wickerwork contrivance in order to guard it against injury. CHAPTER LXXXVI. NEW ZEALAND--_Continued_. THE TAPU. THE TAPU, OR LAW OF PROHIBITION -- TAPU A SUBSTITUTE FOR GOVERNMENT -- PROTECTION TO PROPERTY AND MORALS -- ABUSE OF THE TAPU -- THE CHIEF AND THE SAILOR -- THE CHIEF AND HIS MAT -- A VALUABLE SPLINTER -- THE HEAD OF THE CHIEF -- AN UNLUCKY MISTAKE -- HOW TAONUI GOT HIS ARMOR -- HAIR CUTTING -- TROUBLES OF AN ARTIST -- THE CARVED HEAD -- TE-WHERO-WHERO AND HIS PORTRAIT -- THE TAPU MOUNTAIN -- BANEFUL EFFECTS OF THE TAPU ON NATIVE ART -- DESTRUCTION OF THE PAHS AND HOUSES -- THE TERMINABLE TAPU -- THE BATTLE-TAPU -- TAKING OFF THE TAPU -- DUTY OF THE TOHUNGA -- THE TAPU THE STRENGTH OF THE CHIEFS. We now come naturally to the custom of Tapu or Taboo, that extraordinary system which extends throughout the whole of Polynesia, modified slightly according to the locality in which it exists.