Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 96, 114 _sq._

[101] E. Shortland, _The Southern Districts of New Zealand_, pp.
68 _sq._

[102] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 114 _sq._

But in contrast to the temporary taboos which affected common folk and
debarred them for a time from familiar intercourse with their fellows, a
perpetual and very stringent taboo was laid on the persons and property
of chiefs, especially of those high hereditary chiefs who bore the title
of _Ariki_ and were thought to be able at any time to hold visible
converse with their dead ancestors.[103] Strictly speaking, "the _ariki_
of a Maori tribe is the senior male descendant of the elder branch of
the tribe, that is, he is a descendant of the elder son of the elder son
of each generation from the time of the original ancestor down to the
present day. As such, he was of old regarded almost as a god, inasmuch
as he represented all that there was of _m[)a]na_ and sacredness of his
tribe. That he should have been regarded in this light is not
astonishing, for the Maoris believed he was something more than human,
in that he was the shrine of an hereditary _Atua_, the guardian spirit
of the tribe, and could therefore at any time communicate with the
tribal gods.... Such a man was not only _tapu_ in person but he made
everything he touched so dangerously sacred as to be a source of terror
to the tribe. To smoke his pipe, or drink from any vessel he had
touched, was death speedy and certain at the hands of the gods, who
avenge breaches of the _tapu_."[104] "The gods being no more than
deceased chiefs, the _arikis_ were regarded as living ones, and thus
were not to be killed by inferior men, but only by those who had more
powerful _atuas_ in them; the victorious chief who had slain numbers,
swallowed their eyes, and drunk their blood, was supposed to have added
the spirits of his victims to his own, and thus increased his _mana_ or
power; to keep up this idea, and hinder the lower orders from trying
whether it were possible to kill such corporeal and living gods, was the
grand work of the _tapu_."[105] The godhead of a chief was thought to
reside in his eyes, especially in his left eye; that was why by
swallowing the eye or eyes of a slain chief a living chief was believed
to absorb the divine spirit of the dead man and thereby to strengthen
his own divinity; the more eyes he swallowed, the greater god he
became.[106]

[103] E. Dieff