with all the vehemence imaginable, and said that he would not go
to heaven, nor would he go to hell to have nothing but fire to eat; but
he would go to the Reinga or Po, to eat coomeras, (sweet potatoes) with
his friends who had gone before."

The slaves that are sacrificed upon the death of a chief, by his
friends, are generally intended to prevent him from coming again to
destroy them; but we find that on the occasion of a child having been
drowned, the mother insisted upon a female slave being killed, to be a
companion for it on its way to the Reinga.

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