ropologischer Theil, Dritte Abtheilung, Ethnographie_,
bearbeitet von Dr. Fr. Mueller (Vienna, 1868), pp. 59 _sq._ Even
more dangerous than the spirits of dead infants were supposed to
be the spirits of human germs, which the Maoris imagined to
exist in the menstrual fluid. See E. Shortland, _Traditions and
Superstitions of the New Zealanders_, pp. 115, 292; _id._,
_Maori Religion and Mythology_, pp. 107 _sq._ As to disease
inflicted by ancestral spirits (_atuas_) for breaches of taboo,
see further J. L. Nicholas, _Narrative of a Voyage to New
Zealand_ (London, 1817), i. 272 _sq._, ii. 176 _sq._; E.
Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 105, "The breaking of
the _tapu_, if the crime does not become known, is, they
believe, punished by the _Atua_, who inflicts disease upon the
criminal; if discovered, it is punished by him whom it regards,
and often becomes the cause of war."

[125] Richard A. Cruise, _Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in
New Zealand_ (London, 1823), p. 320; J. Dumont d'Urville,
_Voyage autour du Monde et a la recherche de la Perouse,
Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 517; W. Yate, _An
Account of New Zealand_, pp. 141 _sq._; E. Dieffenbach, _Travels
in New Zealand_, ii. 117; Elsdon Best, "Maori Medical Lore,"
_Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol. xiii. no. 4 (December
1904), p. 228. As to the superstitious veneration of lizards
among the peoples of the Malay-Polynesian stock, see G. A.
Wilken, _Verspreide Geschriften_ (The Hague, 1912), iv. 125
_sqq._

[126] G. F. Angas, _Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New
Zealand_, ii. 67.

[127] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 142.

Sec. 6. _Conclusion_

If now we attempt to sum up the effects which the belief in human
immortality exercised on the life of the Maoris we may perhaps conclude
that these effects were partly good and partly evil. On the one hand by
ascribing to the chiefs the special protection of the powerful spirits
of the dead, it invested the governing class with a degree of authority
to which on merely natural or rational grounds they could have laid no
claim; hence it tended to strengthen the respect for government and to
ensure the maintenance of law and order. Moreover, by lending a
supernatural sanction to the rights of private property among all
classes it further contributed to abolish one