squeezed his head through it. The elastic wall
of _raupo_ closed again around his neck; and the _tapu_ was fairly
beaten! No one could say he was _in_ the house. He was certainly more
out than in; and there, seemingly hanging from, or stuck against the
wall, remained for hours, with open mouth and wondering eyes, this
brazen head; till at last, the shades of night obstructing its vision,
a rustling noise in the wall of flags and reeds announced the departure
of my ingenious admirer.

Some of the forms of the _tapu_, however, were not to be trifled with,
and were of a most virulent kind. Of this kind was the _tapu_ of those
who handled the dead, or conveyed the body to its last resting-place.
This _tapu_ was, in fact, the uncleanness of the old Jewish law; it
lasted about the same time, and was removed in almost the same way. It
was a most serious affair. The person who came under this form of the
_tapu_ was cut off from all contact, and almost all communication, with
the human race. He could not enter any house, or come in contact with
any person or thing, without utterly defiling them. He could not even
touch food with his hands; which had become so frightfully _tapu_, or
unclean, as to be quite useless. Food would be placed for him on the
ground, and he would then sit or kneel down, and, with his hands
carefully held behind his back, would gnaw it in the best way he could.
In some cases he would be fed by another person, who, with
out-stretched arm, would manage to do it without touching the _tapu'd_
individual; but this feeder was subjected to many and severe
restrictions, not much less onerous than those to which the other was
subject.

In almost every populous native village there was a person
who--probably for the sake of immunity from labour, or from being good
for nothing else--took up the undertaking business as a regular
profession, and, in consequence, was never for a moment, for years
together, clear of the horrid inconveniences of the _tapu_, as well as
its dangers. One of these people might be easily recognized, after a
little experience, even by a pakeha. Old, withered, haggard, clothed in
the most miserable rags, and daubed all over from head to foot with red
paint (the native funereal colour), made of stinking shark oil and red
ochre mixed, keeping always at a distance, silent and solitary, often
half insane, he might be seen sitting motionless all day at forty or
fifty yards distance from the common