Note 6 — WILLIAM ENDICOTT’S NARRATIVE

The primitive Maori method of cooking bodies was to dig a hole in the ground about two feet deep in which was placed a quantity of stones. A fire was built over these and when they were red hot most of them were removed. Those remaining were covered with alternate layers of leaves and flesh until there was as much above as below ground. Two or three quarts of water was then thrown over the pile, old mats spread over it and the whole covered with earth to confine the steam. In twenty minutes the flesh was cooked. Cannibalism was entirely abandoned by 1840 owing to the influence of the missionaries.