This image of a tohunga painted by Gottfried Lindauer was a reworking of an earlier work by Horatio Robley, painted around 1863. The tohunga is being fed because he is so tapu that he is unable to touch the food himself. One role of tohunga was to heal people if they got sick. Often sickness was believed to have been brought about as a result of breaches of tapu.
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Auckland Art Gallery – Toi o Tāmaki
Oil painting by Gottfried Lindauer
Permission of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
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