It is very remarkable that the New Zealanders attribute the creation of
man to their three principal deities acting together; thus exhibiting in
their barbarous theology something like a shadow of the Christian
Trinity. What is still more extraordinary is their tradition respecting
the formation of the first woman, who, they say, was made of one of the
man's ribs; and their general term for bone is hevee, or, as Professor
Lee gives it, iwi[BL] a sound bearing a singular resemblance to the
Hebrew name of our first mother.
[Illustration: _Christchurch Museum._
Carved boxes (_waka-papa_, or _waka_) for holding feathers and trinkets.
The upper box is said to have formed part of Captain Cook's collection.]
Particular individuals and places would also seem to have their own
gods. When the "Active" was in the river Thames, a gale of wind, by
which the ship was attacked, was attributed by the natives on board to
the anger of the god of Shoupah,[BM] the Areekee who resided in the
neighbourhood. Kórro-korro, who was among them said that as soon as he
got on shore he would endeavour to prevail upon the Areekee to
propitiate the offended deity. When Marsden asked the people of
Kiperro[BN] if they
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,[BO] maintained to one of the missionaries that the god of thunder
resided in his forehead; and Shungie and Okeda[BP] 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 immortality 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; and is said, in some
of the accounts, to be a rock or a mountain at the North Cape from
which, according to others, the spirits descend into the next world
through the sea. The notion which the New Zealanders really entertain as
to this matter appears to be that the spirits first leap from the North
Cape into the sea, and thence emerge into an Elysium situated in the
islands of the Three Kings. The submarine path to the blissful region of
the New Zealanders is less intricate than that of the Huron of
America:--
"To the country of the Dead,
Long and painful is thy way!
O'er rivers wide and deep
Lies the road that must be past,
By bridges narrow-wall'd,
When scarce the soul can force its way,
While the loose fabric totters under it."
In the heaven of the New Zealanders, as in that of the ancient Goths,
the chief employment of the blessed is war, their old delight while on
earth. The idea of any more tranquil happiness has no charms for them.
Speaking of an assembly of them which he had been endeavouring to
instruct in the doctrines of Christianity, one of the Wesleyan
missionaries says: "On telling them about the two eternal states, as
described in the Scriptures, an old chief began to protest against these
things with all the vehemence imaginable, and said that he would not go
to heaven, nor would he go to hell to have nothing but fire to eat; but
he would go to the Reinga or Po, to eat coomeras, (sweet potatoes) with
his friends who had gone before."
The slaves that are sacrificed upon the death of a chief, by his
friends, are generally intended to prevent him from coming again to
destroy them; but we find that on the occasion of a child having been
drowned, the mother insisted upon a female slave being killed, to be a
companion for it on its way to the Reinga.
Though the New Zealanders do not assemble together at stated times to
worship their gods, they are in the habit of praying to them in all
their emergencies. Thus, when Korro-korro met his aunt, as before
related, his brother Tooi informed Nicholas that the ejaculations the
old woman uttered as she approached were prayers to the divinity. When
Korro-korro urged Marsden to take his son with him to Port Jackson, and
was told by that gentleman that he was afraid to do so lest the boy
should die, as so many of his countrymen had done when removed from
their native island, the chief replied, that he would pray for his son
during his absence, as he had done for his brother Tooi when he was in
England, and then he would not die.
Tupee,[BQ] too, another of the Bay of Islands chiefs, Marsden tells us,
used to pray frequently. When that gentleman lay sick in his cot, on the
voyage home from his first visit to New Zealand, Tupee, who was with
him, used to sit by his side, and, laying his hands on different parts
of his body, addressed himself all the while with great devotion to his
god, in intercession for his friend's recovery.
The priests, or tohungas, as they are called, are persons of great
importance and authority in New Zealand, being esteemed almost the
keepers and rulers of the gods themselves.
Many of the greatest of the chiefs and Areekees are also priests, as
was, for example, Tupee, whom we have just mentioned. It is the priest
who attends at the bedside of the dying chief, and regulates every part
of the treatment of the patient. When the body of a chief who has been
killed in battle is to be eaten, it is the priest who first gives the
command for its being roasted. The first mouthfuls of the flesh, also,
being regarded as the dues of the gods, are always eaten by the priest.
In the case of any public calamity, it is the priest whose aid is
invoked to obtain relief from heaven.
Marsden states that on occasion of the caterpillars one year making
great ravages among the crops of sweet potatoes at Rangheehoo,[BR] the
people of that place sent to Cowa-Cowa[BS] for a great priest to avert
the heavy judgment; and that he came and remained with them for several
months, during which he employed himself busily in the performance of
prayers and ceremonies. The New Zealanders also
consider all their priests as a species of sorcerers, and believe they
have the power to take the lives of whomsoever they choose by
incantation. Themorangha,[BT] one of the most enlightened of the chiefs,
came one day to Marsden, in great agitation, to inform him that a
brother chief had threatened to employ a priest to destroy him in this
manner, for not having sold to sufficient advantage an article which he
had given him to dispose of. "I endeavoured," says Marsden, "to convince
him of the absurdity of such a threat; but to no purpose; he still
persisted that he should die, and that the priest possessed that power;
and began to draw the lines of incantation on the ship's deck, in order
to convince me how the operation was performed. He said that the
messenger was waiting alongside, in a canoe, for his answer. Finding it
of no use to argue with him, I gave him an axe, which he joyfully
received, and delivered to the messenger, with a request that the chief
would be satisfied, and not proceed against him."
Themorangha seems to have been particularly selected by these priests as
a subject for their roguish practices, perhaps by way of revenge for the
freedom with which he occasionally expressed himself in regard to their
pretensions, when his fears were not excited. A short time before this,
one of them had terrified him not a little by telling him that he had
seen his ghost during the night, and had been informed, by the atua,
that if he went to a certain place to which he was then about to
proceed, he would die in a few days. He soon, however, got so far the
better of his fears as, notwithstanding this alarming intimation, to
venture to accompany Marsden to the forbidden district; and he expressed
his feelings of contempt for the sacred order in no measured terms, when
he found that at the expiration of the predicted period he was still
alive.
He said that there were too many priests at New Zealand, and that they
"tabooed" and prayed the people to death. Others, as well as the
priests, however, are supposed sometimes to have the power of
witchcraft.
Two of the missionaries, when one day about to land at a place a short
distance from the settlement, were alarmed by nearly running the boat's
head on three human bodies, which lay close together by the water's edge
among some rushes; and upon inquiry they were informed that they were
the bodies of three slaves who had been killed that morning for
makootooing a chief, _i.e._ betwitching or praying evil prayers against
him, which had caused his death.[BU]
A common method which the priests use of bewitching those whom they mean
to destroy, is to curse them, which is universally believed to have a
fatal effect. The curse seems usually to be uttered in the shape of a
yell or song, so that the process is literally a species of incantation.
Bishop Newton, in his commentary on the scriptural account of Balaam
being sent for to curse the Israelites, says, "It was a superstitious
ceremony in use among the heathens, to devote their enemies to
destruction at the beginning of their wars; as if the gods would enter
into their passions, and were as unjust and partial as themselves."
The demeanour of most of the New Zealand priests is something so
entirely different from that observed by the ministers of religion in
civilized countries that it is not surprising Rutherford should have
failed to recognise them as belonging to that order.
Thus, we read of a priest who speaks of having killed, not by
enchantment, but in the usual way, with his own hands, both a woman who
had gone on board a ship contrary to his orders, and a man who had
stolen some potatoes.
Another is mentioned as having one day introduced himself into the house
of Mr. Williams, one of the missionaries, by springing over the fence,
and then, when his rude conduct was reproved, stripping himself to fight
with that gentleman. The same personage, who bore the venerable name of
Towee Taboo,[BV] or Holy Towee, a short time after attempted to break
Mr. Williams's door to pieces with a long pole; and when he could not
accomplish that object, effected his entrance by leaping over the fence
as before. What he now wanted, he said, was hootoo,[BW] or payment, for
a hurt which he had given his foot in performing this exploit on the
former occasion. When this strange demand was refused, he attempted to
set the house on fire; and having collected a mob of his friends, would
certainly have done so, had not another party of the natives come to the
assistance of Mr. Williams and his family.
But one of the most remarkable among this order of men seems to be
Tamanhena[BX], the priest of the head of the Shukehanga, who is believed
to have absolute command over the winds and waves. Marsden met with this
dignitary on his second visit to New Zealand; and found that, in
addition to being a priest, he was in the habit of acting as a pilot, a
profession with which the other suited very well, as by virtue of his
sacred character he had the power of keeping the winds and waves quiet
whenever he chose to put to sea.
Accordingly, Marsden went out with him in a canoe to examine the
entrance of the river; Tamanhena assuring him, though it blew very
fresh, that he would soon make both the wind and the waves fall.
"We were no sooner in the canoe," continues Marsden, "than the priest
began to exert all his powers to still the gods, the winds, and the
waves. He spake in an angry and commanding tone. However, I did not
perceive either the winds or waves yield to his authority; and when we
reached the head, I requested to go on shore."
Tamanhena wished very much to learn to pray like the Europeans, and said
he should willingly give a farm to any missionary who would come to
reside near him. He also promised that he would let Marsden hear his god
speak to him; but when they got to the place where the conference was to
be held, he discovered that the god was not there. Marsden, however,
found him remarkably well informed on all subjects relating to his
country and religion, and thought him, upon the whole, a very sensible
man, making allowance for his theological opinions.
Cruise has, however, detailed some particulars of this venerable
personage, whom he also met with a few months after Marsden had seen
him, which grievously detract from his character for sanctity. He made
the voyage with them in the "Dromedary" from the Bay of Islands to the
mouth of the Shukehanga, but announced his intention of leaving them the
day after their arrival.
"During his stay in the ship," says Cruise, "there certainly was nothing
of a very sacred character about him; he was by far the wildest of his
companions; and, unfortunately, on the morning fixed for his departure,
a soldier having missed his jacket, there was so great a suspicion of
the pilot's honesty, that the sentinel at the gangway took the liberty
of lifting up his mat, as he prepared to go down the side, and
discovered the stolen property under it.
"The jacket was of course taken from him; and as the only excuse he had
to offer for his misconduct was that he had lost a shirt that had been
given to him, and that he considered himself authorised to get
remuneration in any way he could, he was dismissed without those
presents which were given to the others. We were glad to see that his
countrymen seemed to notice his conduct in the strongest terms of
disapprobation; and the next day, when they were about to leave us, they
seemed so determined to put him to death that they were requested not to
do so, but to consider his having lost his presents, and his being
forbidden ever to come near the ship, a sufficient punishment for his
offence."
It is very remarkable, that, whenever a child is born in New Zealand, it
is the invariable practice to take it to the tohunga, or priest, who
sprinkles it on the face with water, from a leaf which he holds in his
hand. It is believed that the neglect of this ceremony would be attended
with the most baneful consequences to the child.
Much reverence is felt among the New Zealanders for dreams; and it is
believed that the favoured of heaven often receive in this way the
communications of the gods. We need hardly remark how universal this
superstition has been. The reader of Homer will recollect the
[Greek: kai gar t onar ek Dios estin]
of that poet, and the [Greek: oulos oneiros], or evil dream, which, in
the second book of the Iliad, Jupiter sends down to Agamemnon, to lure
him to give battle to the Trojans in the absence of Achilles.
We must refer to Lafitau's learned work on the savages of America for an
account of the notions which prevail among them as to divination by
dreams. Dillon tells us that he found no way so effectual of repressing
the importunities of his New Zealand friends, in any case in which it
was inconvenient to gratify them, as assuring them he had dreamed that
the favour they requested would turn out a misfortune to them. When some
of them, for example, entreated that he would take them with him to
India, he told them that he had dreamed that if they went to that
country they would die there; and this at once put an end to their
solicitations.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote BL: The Maoris and Hawaiians use the word "iwi" for a bone;
the Samoans, Tahitians, and other islanders say "ivi."]
[Footnote BM: Probably Tupa.]
[Footnote BN: Probably Kaipara.]
[Footnote BO: Tara.]
[Footnote BP: Okita.]
[Footnote BQ: Tupi.]
[Footnote BR: Rangihoua, in the Bay of Islands.]
[Footnote BS: Kawa-kawa, in the same district.]
[Footnote BT: Te Morenga, a chief of the Bay of Islands.]
[Footnote BU: The maketu, which is correctly described here, was one of
the most firmly established institutions in New Zealand in old times.]
[Footnote BV: Tui Tapu.]
[Footnote BW: Utu. This is another great institution amongst the ancient
Maoris. It represents the principle of payment, an equivalent, a return,
compensation, or satisfaction for injuries.]
[Footnote BX: Tamihana.]