Traditional medicines in the Pacific | 287Later visitors observed that plants were used during the treatment of
many internal medical problems. Some of these writers considered that
plants were used mainly as adjuncts during the largely ritualistic treatment
of these conditions, possibly because Maoris at that time did not recognise
disease as a cause of death. Disorders of the body were thought instead to
be caused by the influence of evil spirits and as such could be removed only
by the power of the ‘priest’/healer (tohunga):^23
... there was no science of medicine in Maoriland. The native belief
that all bodily ailments were caused by evil spirits, or came as a
punishment from the gods, effectually prevented research in even
simple lines such as herbal remedies. When they at last received the
knowledge of internal medicine from Europeans the natives were
captivated by the new mode of exorcising evil spirits. They took to
medicine as a duck to water, and swallowed any nostrum they could
procure, be it ever so vile. Ere long, they began to concoct strange
herbal remedies for themselves.^24
Other writers have, however, suggested that Maoris did indeed have
extensive knowledge of many plants that could be and were used as medi-
cines, knowledge that might, however, have been kept deliberately from the
incoming ‘foreigners’:24, 27
... that we can estimate... their dexterity or versatility in
compounding drugs is impossible owing to the great secrecy with
which such manipulations were carried out. The tohunga pretended
to be instructed by his god as to the herbs he should select and the
manner of combining them....^28
Although Joseph Banks, the botanist who accompanied Cook on his
1779 voyage to New Zealand, is reported to have remarked that ‘the health
of the natives was so sound that probably their need of physic was small’,^27
the average Maori in pre-European times ‘had a short, harsh life [to about
30 years of age] but a short inventory of serious diseases to be treated’.^29
The accounts written by explorers, missionaries and other early settlers
do appear to confirm that a number of different plants were used to treat
various skin disorders such as wounds, ‘itch’ and ‘growths’. Others were
used internally to treat what might be described in general terms as gastroin-
testinal or breathing problems. Many could have been related to the living
conditions of most Maoris at the time, when food was scarce, especially in
winter months, and living conditions were often crowded and close.
Skin and some internal problems were treated by means of steam or
vapour baths. Heated stones were placed in a form of an earth oven,