Butte record., 1856-05-31
NU MBER 80.
The New Zelander's superst,,,o,s

They have as many heavens as the
Hindoos mnny compartments in
HIDES as Quevedo himself. The lowest
are the worst. There the spirits feed
upon nothing but flies; and this food is
not sufficient to sustain spiritual life
SO that those who had their lodgings on
the ground floor faded into shadow and
from that into blank nothing -at>all.-
Something better off were those spirits
who f d upon kumaros and tarocs. The
keeper Of the place will sometimes drive
back dying man, and not suffer him to
! cross over the plank which leads from
the end Of the earth to the unseen world.
\ curious superstition, identical with
one that W. find in the Greek mytholo-
/ gy, makes them believe that if one does
not eat of the fruit of the Reinga he
may return again to the earth. A sto-
ry, such as we find everywhere, of
person while in trance, visiting the
world of the dead, was told Mr.. TAYLOR.
! An old wOmrn said she visited the other
world-was offered food, which she de-
clined-was permitted by the authori-
ties there to eturn to earth, but was in
ter upted by spirits, whom she propiti>
ated by thro wing them few kumas,
gwen her by relative whom she met
III the c urse Of her journey. The en-
ance to the other world is supposed to
be at the reigna-lierally, "the leaping
place" which is situated to the cas-, Of
Cape Marie Van Dieman.
"Reinga," says Mr.. Difenbach, "is
the extremity Of cliff of conglomerate
rock, which cannot be approached from
the SEASIDE, and which lines the coast
TOR bout miles" 1t is the limit of
the known world to the New Zealanders.
Sands every where encroach upon this
island. Hills once covered by the kau-
RI pine are now stripped of the trees
which at one time were a protection a
galnst the sands, and nothing is seen
Z owing there but few stunted trees,
with the manuka and the fe IN. Ii i
probable that forest, such as in the old
class cal mythology and in Dante's lead
to the would of the unse n, was, at the
time the Reinga was thought of as the
entrance to HIDES, in the imagination of
the fablers Of the Maori; but we know
whether the desolation of It's present
aspect does not better fall in with the
thought Of a separation from earth and
its rnj ments. At death, mans spirit,
according to the Maori belief, leaves the
body, and, Ike met, or, shoots down
to the Reinga. An ancient pohutucana
tree is ere, upon the branches of which
the spirit then makes its way. The,
place is looked upon with fear, and even
Christian natives refused to accompany
Dlffenbach thltbcr. OF late the spell is
In some degree broken, as a missionary
Is s I'D to have cut off one Of the branch
es by which the spirit was supposed to.
desce.'d. A fanciful thought is blended
win this superstition. The spirit of
prrson who resided in the interior bro't'
with ii a leaf of the palm tree to tell of
its home--that of person from the
coast brought with it kind of grass,
which grows by the seaside We are
reminded of that beautiful passage in
Moore's ''Veiled Prophet of Korassan,"
where number Of young girls are de-
scribod as gathering chapl' is:
Sweet, though mournful It's to see
How each prefers garland from that tree,
Which brings to min her childhood S innoccns
day,
And the dear fields and friendships far away
Before the spirit of an ariki, Or chief
tain, dcscends into the Peinga, he first
ascends TO the visible heaven, where his
left eye becomes IA star. From the Re-
inga the spirits of the dead can commu-
nicate through the Tohnnga. who hears
them, ard can Interpret their language.
They speak in the whlstling OF the winds,
and often in dreams. When they speak
in dreams, il is 0 the priest or the ari-
ki, who then communicates what is thus
commanded or counseled The natives
are great believers in dreams In dreams
the soul is supposed by them to visit the
Reinga, and converse with the deceased
Dreams 90 by contraries. To see
friend in Your dream dying is sure
sign of his being in good health. IF he
appears well it is sign 81 his DEATH
To dream of seeing the dead is of evil
omen.
b6y~ G. 2. observes of the National
Debt of Great Britain which amounts to
$500, ,00O, 200, that If the amount were
laid down in sovere gns, each of which
is of an inch in diameter, edge and
edge together, they would reach to the
extent Of II ,047 miles; if pied up on
each other, allowing ID to the inch,
they would form column s41 miles
in height; it would weigh in current gold
$500 tons; if divided among the popu-
lat'on of England and Wales, 10000
0o0,) it would produce $50 10 each per-
son; in counting the sum in sovereigns
at 60 per minute, IL hours each day, it
would occupy 81 years; if q person were
to pay ii at per minute, he would re-
quIre 5000 years to do it, SO that if our
grandfather Adam had lived till now, he
would not at that rate have yet finished
his laborious task; if one man were to
crry s cwt., it would require Sc, 900
men to move this enormous load with
whioh the nation is SO grisvously burth-