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THE MAORIS OF NEW ZEALAND.
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unless the fish is held up to see the tattooing. No gourd or calabash must be eaten from if children have playfully made tattooing marks upon it. The priest and all the people are tapu on account of the blood during the operation, but the ceremony of making ovens is gone through, much as in the purification rites;
Tattooed Maori Chief.
and the tapu is transferred to the gods' food by the priest handling one of the hot stones of their oven.
Girls were given great license from a very early age in the matter of lovers. Some girls, however, were born proud, and either kept to one sweetheart or had none, but this was rare. When a girl married she became tapu to her husband. Any one
