Note 34 — Chapter I · TABOOED DAYS AT CRITICAL EPOCHS

E. Tregear, in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, 1890, xix, 110. No food might be cooked on the day before a war-party set out (ibid., p. 108). Mr. Tregear, an excellent authority, declares that in New Zealand “there were no long periods of silence such as the kings of Hawaii laid on their people by proclaiming tapu” (ibid., p. 122). Another writer assures us that the Maori “had no days more sacred than others” (Taylor, op. cit., p. 92). Yet in one part of New Zealand it was customary to celebrate the new year with a karakia, or magical incantation and prayer; in another place there was a karakia when the new moon appeared; and in still another place “the most sacred day of the year was that appointed for hair-cutting; the people assembled from all the neighbouring parts, often more than a thousand in number; the operation being commenced with karakia, the operator and his obsidian (substitute for scissors) being thus rendered peculiarly sacred” (ibid., p. 93).