als, and it has in many things a beneficial
influence amongst a people who have no written or regularly
established code of laws of their own." To the same effect
another authority on the Maoris observes: "The most politic and
useful of all the superstitious institutions of the Maori people
is that which involves the rites of _tapu_. It has always seemed
to me that this institution, with its far-reaching
ramifications, must have been the conception of a very gifted
mind, for, as a governing factor, it is very superior to the
Hindu institution of caste. It must, moreover, have been
initiated during a period of civilisation, to which the
Polynesians have long been strangers, but with which at one
period of their history they were sufficiently familiar." See
Lieut.-Colonel Gudgeon, "The Tipua-Kura and other Manifestations
of the Spirit World," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol.
xv. no. 57 (March 1906), p. 49.

The particular superstition which lies at the root of taboo and has
incidentally exercised a beneficent influence by inspiring a respect for
law and morality appears to be a belief in the existence of ghosts and
their power to affect the fortunes of the living for good or evil. For
the ultimate sanction of the taboo, in other words, that which engaged
the people to observe its commandments, was a firm persuasion that any
breach of these commandments would surely and speedily be punished by an
_atua_ or ghost, who would afflict the sinner with a painful malady till
he died. From youth upwards the Maori was bred in the faith that the
souls of his dead ancestors, jealous of any infraction of the
traditionary rites, would commission some spirit of their kin to enter
into the transgressor's body and prey on a vital part. The visible signs
of this hidden and mysterious process they fancied to be the various
forms of disease. The mildest ailments were thought to be caused by the
spirits of those who had known the sufferer on earth, and who
accordingly were imagined to be more merciful and more reluctant to
injure an old friend and relation. On the other hand the most malignant
forms of disease were attributed to the spirits of dead infants, who
having never learned to love their living friends, would rend and devour
the bowels of their nearest kin without compunction. With these ideas as
to the origin of disease the Maoris naturally did not attempt to heal