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knew anything of their god, or ever had any communication with him, they replied that they often heard him whistle. The chiefs, too, are often called atuas, or gods, even while they are alive. The aged chief, Tarra,* maintained to one of the missionaries that the god of thunder resided in his forehead; and Shungie and Okedaf asserted that they were possessed by gods of the sea. The part of the heavens in which the gods reside is represented as beautiful in the extreme. “When the clouds are beautifully chequered,’’ writes Kendal, “the atua above, it is supposed, is planting sweet potatoes. At the season when these are planted in the ground, the planters dress themselves in their best raiment, and say that, as atuas on earth, they are imitating the atua in heaven.” The New Zealanders believe that the souls of the higher orders among them are immortal; but they hold that when the ‘ ‘ cookees ’ ’ die they perish for ever. The spirit, they think, leaves the body the third day after death, till which time it hovers round the corpse, and hears very well whatever is said to it. But they hold also, it would seem, that there is a separate immor tality for each of the eyes of the dead person; the left, as before-mentioned, ascending to heaven and becoming a star, and the other, in the shape of a spirit, taking flight for the Reinga. Reinga signifies, properly, the place of flight; ‘Tara. fOkita. M