THE MAORI AND THE UNSEEN
"Dreaming caves
Full of the groping of bewildered waves."
The Maori mind conceived of the Universe as divided into three
regions--the Heavens above, the Earth beneath, and the Darkness under
the Earth. To Rangi, the Heaven, the privileged souls of chiefs and
priests returned after death, for from Rangi had come down their
ancestors the gods, the fathers of the heroes. For the souls of the
common people there was in prospect no such lofty and serene abode.
They could not hope to climb after death to the tenth heaven, where
dwelt Rehua, the Lord of Loving-kindness, attended by an innumerable
host. Ancient of days was Rehua, with streaming hair. The lightning
flashed from his arm-pits, great was his power, and to him the sick,
the blind, and the sorrowful might pray.
It was not the upper world of Ao or Light, but an under world of Po or
Darkness, to which the spirit of the unprivileged Maori must take its
way. Nor was the descent to Te Reinga or Hades a _facilis descensus
Averni_. After the death-chant had ceased, and the soul had left the
body--left it lying surrounded by weeping blood-relations marshalled
in due order--it started on a long journey. Among the Maoris the dead
were laid with feet pointing to the north, as it was thither that the
soul's road lay. At the extreme north end of New Zealand was a spot
_Muri Whenua_--Land's End. Here was the Spirits' Leap. To that the
soul travelled, halting once and again on the hill-tops to strip off
the green leaves in which the mourners had clad it. Here and there by
the wayside some lingering ghost would tie a knot in the ribbon-like
leaves of the flax plant--such knots as foreigners hold to be made
by the whipping of the wind. As the souls gathered at their goal,
nature's sounds were hushed. The roar of the waterfall, the sea's
dashing, the sigh of the wind in the trees, all were silenced. At the
Spirits' Leap on the verge of a tall cliff grew a lonely tree, with
brown, spreading branches, dark leaves and red flowers. The name of
the tree was Spray-Sprinkled.[1] One of its roots hung down over
the cliff's face to the mouth of a cavern fringed by much sea-weed,
floating or dripping on the heaving sea. Pausing for a moment the
reluctant shades chanted a farewell to their fellow-men and danced a
last war-dance. Amid the wild yells of the invisible dancers could be
heard the barking of their dogs. Then, sliding down the roots, the
spirits disappeared in the cave. Within its recesses was a river
flowing between sandy shores. All were impelled to cross it. The
Charon of this Styx was no man, but a ferrywoman called Rohé. Any
soul whom she carried over and who ate the food offered to it on the
further bank was doomed to abide in Hades. Any spirit who refused
returned to its body on earth and awoke. This is the meaning of what
White men call a trance.
[Footnote 1: _Pohutu-kawa_.]
As there were successive planes and heights in Heaven, so there were
depths below depths in the Underworld. In the lowest and darkest the
soul lost consciousness, became a worm, and returning to earth, died
there. Eternal life was the lot of only the select few who ascended to
Rangi.
Yet once upon a time there was going and coming between earth and the
place of darkness, as the legend of the origin of the later style of
tattooing shows. Thus the story runs. The hero Mata-ora had to wife
the beautiful Niwa Reka. One day for some slight cause he struck her,
and, leaving him in anger, she fled to her father, who dwelt in the
Underworld. Thither followed the repentant Mata-ora. On his way he
asked the fan-tail bird whether it had seen a human being pass. Yes, a
woman had gone by downcast and sobbing. Holding on his way, Mata-ora
met his father-in-law, who, looking in his face, complained that he
was badly tattooed. Passing his hand over Mata-ora's face he wiped out
with his divine power the blue lines there, and then had him thrown
down on the ground and tattooed in a novel, more artistic and
exquisitely agonizing fashion. Mata-ora in his pain chanted a song
calling upon his wife's name. Report of this was carried to Niwa Reka,
and her heart was touched. She forgave her husband, and nursed him
through the fever caused by the tattooing. Happier than Orpheus and
Eurydice, the pair returned to earth and taught men to copy the
patterns punctured on Mata-ora's face. But, alas! in their joy they
forgot to pay to Ku Whata Whata, the mysterious janitor of Hades, Niwa
Reka's cloak as fee. So a message was sent up to them that henceforth
no man should be permitted to return to earth from the place of
darkness. In the age of the heroes not only the realms below but the
realms above could be reached by the daring. Hear the tale of Tawhaki,
the Maori Endymion! When young he became famous by many feats, among
others, by destroying the submarine stronghold of a race of sea-folk
who had carried off his mother. Into their abode he let a flood of
sunshine, and they, being children of the darkness, withered and died
in the light. The fame of Tawhaki rose to the skies, and one of the
daughters of heaven stole down to behold him at night, vanishing away
at dawn. At last the celestial one became his wife. But he was not
pleased with the daughter she bore him and, wounded by his words, she
withdrew with her child to the skies. Tawhaki in his grief remembered
that she had told him the road thither. He must find a certain tendril
of a wild vine which, hanging down from the sky to earth, had become
rooted in the ground. Therefore with his brother the hero set out on
the quest, and duly found the creeper. But there were two tendrils.
The brother seized the wrong one; it was loose, and he was swung away,
whirled by the wind backwards and forwards from one horizon to the
other. Tawhaki took the right ladder, and climbed successfully.[1] At
the top he met with adventures, and had even to become a slave, and
carry axes and firewood disguised as a little, ugly, old man. At last,
however, he regained his wife, became a god, and still reigns above.
It is he who causes lightning to flash from heaven.
[Footnote 1: Another version describes his ladder as a thread from
a spider's web; a third as the string of his kite, which he flew so
skilfully that it mounted to the sky; then Tawhaki, climbing up the
cord, disappeared in the blue vault.]
The man in the moon becomes, in Maori legend, a woman, one Rona by
name. This lady, it seems, once had occasion to go by night for water
to a stream. In her hand she carried an empty calabash. Stumbling in
the dark over stones and the roots of trees she hurt her shoeless feet
and began to abuse the moon, then hidden behind clouds, hurling at
it some such epithet as "You old tattooed face, there!" But the
moon-goddess heard, and reaching down caught up the insulting Rona,
calabash and all, into the sky. In vain the frightened woman clutched,
as she rose, the tops of a ngaio-tree. The roots gave way, and Rona
with her calabash and her tree are placed in the front of the moon for
ever, an awful warning to all who are tempted to mock at divinities in
their haste.
All beings, gods, heroes and men, are sprung from the ancient union of
Heaven and Earth, Rangi and Papa. Rangi was the father and Earth the
great mother of all. Even now, in these days, the rain, the snow, the
dew and the clouds are the creative powers which come down from Rangi
to mother Earth and cause the trees, the shrubs and the plants to grow
in spring and flourish in summer. It is the self-same process that is
pictured in the sonorous hexameters:--
"Tum pater omnipotens fecundis imbribus Aether
Coniugis in gremium laetae descendit, et omnes
Magnus alit, magno commixtus corpore, fetus."
But in the beginning Heaven lay close to the Earth and all was dim
and dark. There was life but not light. So their children, tired of
groping about within narrow and gloomy limits, conspired together
to force them asunder and let in the day. These were Tu, the
scarlet-belted god of men and war, Tané, the forest god, and their
brother, the sea-god. With them joined the god of cultivated food,
such as the kumara, and the god of food that grows wild--such as the
fern-root. The conspirators cut great poles with which to prop up
Heaven. But the father and mother were not to be easily separated.
They clung to each other despite the efforts of their unnatural sons.
Then Tané, the tree-god, standing on head and hands, placed his feet
against Heaven and, pushing hard, forced Rangi upwards. In that
attitude the trees, the children of Tané, remain to this day. Thus was
the separation accomplished, and Rangi and Papa must for ever remain
asunder. Yet the tears of Heaven still trickle down and fall as
dew-drops upon the face of his spouse, and the mists that rise in the
evening from her bosom are the sighs of regret which she sends up to
her husband on high.[1]
[Footnote 1: Sir George Grey, _Polynesian Mythology_.]
Vengeance, however, fell upon the conspirators. A sixth brother had
had nothing to do with their plot. This was Tawhiri-Matea, the god
of winds and storms. He loyally accompanied his father to the realms
above, whence he descended on his rebel brothers in furious tempests.
The sea-god fled to the ocean, where he and his children dwell
as fishes. The two gods of plant-food hid in the Earth, and she,
forgiving mother that she was, sheltered them in her breast. Only Tu,
the god of mankind, stayed erect and undaunted. So it is that the
winds and storms make war to this day upon men, wrecking their canoes,
tearing down their houses and fences and ruining all their handiwork.
Not only does man hold out against these attacks, but, in revenge for
the cowardly desertion of Tu by his weaker brethren, men, his people,
prey upon the fish and upon the plants that give food whether wild or
cultivated.
Space will scarcely permit even a reference to other Maori myths--to
the tale, for instance, of the great flood which came in answer to the
prayers of two faithful priests as punishment for the unbelief, the
discords and the wickedness of mankind; then all were drowned save a
little handful of men and women who floated about on a raft for eight
moons and so reached Hawaiki. Of the creation of man suffice it to say
that he was made by Tiki, who formed him out of red clay, or, as some
say, out of clay reddened by his own blood. Woman's origin was more
ethereal and poetic; her sire was a noonday sunbeam, her mother a
sylvan echo. Many are the legends of the hero, Maui. He lassooed the
sun with ropes and beat him till he had to go slower, and so the day
grew longer. The first ropes thus used were of flax, which burned and
snapped in the sun's heat. Then Maui twisted a cord of the tresses of
his sister, Ina, and this stayed unconsumed. It was Maui who went to
fetch for man's use the fire which streamed from the finger-nails of
the fire goddess, and who fished up the North Island of New Zealand,
still called by the Maoris _Te Ika a Maui_, the fish of Maui. He first
taught tattooing and the art of catching fish with bait, and died in
the endeavour to gain immortality for men. Death would have been done
away with had Maui successfully accomplished the feat of creeping
through the body of a certain gigantic goddess. But that flippant and
restless little bird, the fan-tail, was so tickled at the sight of the
hero crawling down the monster's throat that it tittered and burst
into laughter. So the goblin awoke, and Maui died for man in vain.
Such are some of the sacred myths of the Maori. They vary very greatly
in different tribes and are loaded with masses of detail largely
genealogical. The religious myths form but one portion of an immense
body of traditional lore, made up of songs and chants, genealogies,
tribal histories, fables, fairy-tales and romantic stories. Utterly
ignorant as the Maoris were of any kind of writing or picture-drawing,
the volume of their lore is amazing, and is an example of the power of
the human memory when assiduously cultivated. Very great care was,
of course, taken to hand it down from father to son in the priestly
families. In certain places in New Zealand, notably at Wanganui,
sacred colleges stood called Whare-kura (Red-house). These halls had
to be built by priestly hands, stood turned to the east, and could
only be approached by the purified. They were dedicated by sacrifice,
sometimes of a dog, sometimes of a human being. The pupils, who were
boys of high rank, went, at the time of admission, through a form
of baptism. The term of instruction lasted through the autumns and
winters of five years. The hours were from sunset to midnight. Only
one woman, an aged priestess, was admitted into the hall, and she only
to perform certain incantations. No one might eat or sleep there, and
any pupil who fell asleep during instruction was at once thrust
forth, was expected to go home and die, and doubtless usually did so.
Infinite pains were taken to impress on the pupils' memories the exact
wording of traditions. As much as a month would be devoted to constant
repetitions of a single myth. They were taught the tricks of
the priestly wizard's trade, and became expert physiognomists,
ventriloquists, and possibly, in some cases, hypnotists. Public
exhibitions afterwards tested the accuracy of their memories and
their skill in witchcraft. On this their fate depended. A successful
_Tohunga_, or wizard, lived on the fat of the land; a few failures,
and he was treated with discredit and contempt.
Though so undoubted an authority as Mr. William Colenso sums up the
old-time Maori as a secularist, it is not easy entirely to agree with
him. Not only had the Maori, as already indicated, an elaborate--too
elaborate--mythology, but he had a code of equally wide and minute
observances which he actually did observe. Not only had he many gods
both of light and evil, but the Rev. James Stack, a most experienced
student, says that he conceived of his gods as something more than
embodiments of power--as beings "interested in human affairs and able
to see and hear from the highest of the heavens what took place on
earth." Mr. Colenso himself dwells upon the Maori faith in dreams,
omens, and charms, and on the universal dread felt for _kehuas_
or ghosts, and _atuas_ or demon spirits. Moreover, the code of
observances aforesaid was no mere secular law. It was the celebrated
system of _tapu_ (taboo), and was not only one of the most
extraordinary and vigorous sets of ordinances ever devised by
barbarous man, but depended for its influence and prestige not mainly
upon the secular arm or even public opinion, but upon the injunction
and support of unseen and spiritual powers. If a man broke the _tapu_
law, his punishment was not merely to be shunned by his fellows or--in
some cases--plundered of his goods. Divine vengeance in one or other
form would swiftly fall upon him--probably in the practical shape of
the entry into his body of an evil spirit to gnaw him to death with
cruel teeth. Men whose terror of such punishment as this, and whose
vivid faith in the imminence thereof, were strong enough to kill them
were much more, or less, than secularists.
The well-known principle that there is no potent, respected, and
lasting institution, however strange, but has its roots in practical
usefulness, is amply verified in the case of _tapu_. By it authority
was ensured, dignity hedged about with respect, and property and
public health protected. Any person, place or thing laid under _tapu_
might not be touched, and sometimes not even approached. A betrothed
maiden defended by _tapu_ was as sacred as a vestal virgin of Rome; a
shrine became a Holy Place; the head of a chief something which it was
sacrilege to lay hands on. The back of a man of noble birth could not
be degraded by bearing burdens--an awkward prohibition in moments when
no slave or woman happened to be in attendance on these lordly beings.
Anything cooked for a chief was forbidden food to an inferior. The
author of _Old New Zealand_ tells of an unlucky slave who unwittingly
ate the remains of a chiefs dinner. When the knowledge of this
frightful crime was flashed upon him, he was seized with internal
cramps and pains and, though a strong man, died in a few hours. The
weapons and personal effects of a chief were, of course, sacred even
in the opinion of a thief, but _tapu_ went further. Even the fire a
chief had lit might not be used by commoners. As for priests, after
the performance of certain ceremonies they for a time had perforce to
become too sacred to feed themselves with their hands. Food would be
laid down before them and kneeling, or on all-fours like dogs, they
had to pick it up with their teeth. Perhaps their lot might be so far
mitigated that a maiden would be permitted to convey food to their
mouths on the end of a fern-stalk--a much less disagreeable process
for the eater. Growing fields of the sweet potato were sacred for
obvious reasons, as were those who were working therein. So were
burial-places and the bones of the dead. The author above-mentioned
chancing one day on a journey to pick up a human skull which had been
left exposed by a land-slide, immediately became an outcast shunned by
acquaintances, friends and his own household, as though he were a very
leper. Before he could be officially cleansed and readmitted into
decent Maori society, his clothing and furniture had to be destroyed,
and his kitchen abandoned. By such means did this--to us--ridiculous
superstition secure reverence for the dead and some avoidance of
infection. To this end the professional grave-digger and corpse-bearer
of a Maori village was _tapu_, and lived loathed and utterly apart.
Sick persons were often treated in the same way, and inasmuch as the
unlucky might be supposed to have offended the gods, the victims
of sudden and striking misfortune were treated as law-breakers and
subjected to the punishment of _Muru_ described in the last chapter.
Death in Maori eyes was not the Great Leveller, as with us. Just
as the destiny of the chief's soul was different from that of the
commoner or slave, so was the treatment of his body.
A slave's death was proverbially that of a dog, no man regarded it.
Even the ordinary free man was simply buried in the ground in a
sitting posture and forgotten. But the departure of a chief of rank
and fame, of great _mana_ or prestige, was the signal for national
mourning. With wreaths of green leaves on their heads, friends sat
round the body wailing the long-drawn cry, _Aué! Aué!_ or listening to
some funeral chant recited in his praise. Women cut themselves with
sharp sea-shells or flakes of volcanic glass till the blood ran down.
The corpse sat in state adorned with flowers and red ochre and clad in
the finest of mantles. Albatross feathers were in the warrior's
hair, his weapons were laid beside him. The onlookers joined in the
lamenting, and shed actual tears--a feat any well-bred Maori could
perform at will. Probably a huge banquet took place; then it was held
to be a truly great _tangi_. Often the wives of the departed killed
themselves in their grief, or a slave was sacrificed in his honour.
His soul was believed to mount aloft, and perhaps some star was
henceforth pointed out as his eye shining down and watching over
his tribe. The tattooed head of the dead man was usually reverently
preserved--stored away in some secret recess and brought out by the
priest to be gazed upon on high occasions. The body, placed in a
canoe-shaped coffin, was left for a time to dry on a stage or moulder
in a hollow tree. After an appointed period the bones were scraped
clean and laid away in a cavern or cleft known only to a sacred few.
They might be thrown down some dark mountain abyss or _toreré_. Such
inaccessible resting-places of famous chiefs--deep well-like pits or
tree-fringed chasms--are still pointed out to the traveller who climbs
certain New Zealand summits. But, wherever the warrior's bones were
laid, they were guarded by secrecy, by the dreaded _tapu_, and by the
jealous zeal of his people. Even now no Maori tribe will sell such
spots, and the greedy or inquisitive _Pakeha_ who profanely explores
or meddles with them does so at no small risk.
Far different was the fate of those unlucky leaders who fell in
battle, or were captured and slaughtered and devoured thereafter.
Their heads stuck upon the posts of the victor's _pa_ were targets for
ribaldry, or, in later days, might be sold to the _Pakeha_ and carried
away to be stared at as oddities. Their bones might be used for flutes
and fishing-hooks, for no fisherman was so lucky as he whose hook was
thus made; their souls were doomed to successive stages of deepening
darkness below, and at length, after reaching the lowest gulf, passed
as earth-worms to annihilation.
[Illustration]