acrifices and offerings at the same time, to
appease as it were their anger, for being thus constrained to do
what they wished them. Their ancestors were addressed as
powerful familiar friends; they gave them offerings, and if it
can be said that any prayers were offered up, it was to them
they were made. The word _karakia_, which we use for prayer,
formerly meant a spell, charm, or incantation."

[80] Elsdon Best, "Maori Religion," _Report of the Twelfth
Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of
Science, held at Brisbane, 1909_, p. 459.

The ancestral spirits who particularly watched over the fortunes of a
tribe were the souls of its dead warriors and great men. In war these
powerful, though invisible, beings were thought to attend the army and
direct its movements on the march by communicating advice or warning
through some one or other of their nearest living kinsmen. In battle
they hovered over the combatants and inspired courage into the hearts of
their own tribe. Hence when, on the eve of battle, any young man showed
signs of the white feather, recourse was immediately had to the family
priest, who repeated a charm, invoking the aid of his friendly spirit;
for the sensation of fear was ascribed to the baneful influence of a
hostile spirit. If the friendly spirit prevailed, and the craven spirit
was expelled, the young man would rush into the thickest of the fight
and prove himself the bravest of the brave.[81]

[81] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, pp. 81 _sq._

The interest taken by the spirits of the dead in mundane affairs seldom
extended beyond the limits of the tribe to which they belonged. Hence a
captive in war, who was carried away and enslaved by another tribe,
ceased from that moment to be under the protection and care of any
ancestral spirit or god. For the ancestral spirits of his own tribe did
not trouble themselves to follow him among a hostile tribe and hostile
spirits, and the ancestral spirits of the tribe whom he served as a
slave would not deign to give him a thought. Hence being forsaken of
god and left to their own devices, slaves were relieved from many of
the burdensome restrictions which the Maori gods laid upon their
worshippers; they were therefore free to perform many menial offices,
particularly in regard to carrying and cooking food, which no free Maori
could discharge without sinnin