steers the canoe into the western precipice: the Sun is setting, and
night swallows the canoe; and in vain does Tama-te-Kapua call for help
from Ngatoro: everything is swallowed in darkness. But at last Ngatoro
takes pity and saves the canoe: the Sun ascends again in the East, and
steers the canoe against the West, to Ao-tea-roa. Far from Hawaiki now
they landed.
Ngatoro takes possession of the land.
Wherever he ascends a hill, he stamps water out of the ground, and he
puts the fairies, the Patu-paiarehe, upon the hills.
At last he ascends Tongariro, but his companions, whom he had left
behind, saw that he became paler and paler as he reached the summit of
Tongariro: the sun was frozen in the ice-cold atmosphere of the sacred
mountain. At last, nearly dead, Ngatoro offers incantations to the gods
at Hawaiki, and they send the fire to him.
It came through the paths of the Lower World and it burst through the
earth on many places: at Roto-ehu, Roto-rua, Tarawera, and at many more
places; but at last it ascended Tongariro, and created a volcano, and the
fire and heat of the volcano saved Ngatoro-i-Rangi from a frightful death.
“Ngatoro-i-Rangi, my listener is the ancestor of the tribe of the
Ngati-tu-wharetoa; we all are the descendants of Ngatoro-i-Rangi, and the
sacred Tongariro is the guardian of my people.”
Out of a wonderful spectacle of colours springs the new day into life.
The rising sun condenses the steam which is hanging, a large white cloud,
over the landscape. Like granades are the geysers shooting into the mass
of steam, and from everywhere is steam ascending thickening the silvery
mass, which hangs swaying and broadening, and bordered with a golden rim,
over our heads. Under the cloud glitters on the near hilltops the fresh
fallen snow.
Now the heart of our old friend feels also joy and happiness.
On the edge of the warm crater basin he squats, covered in his mat, and
looking far into the beautiful day, he commenced his last narrative--
“The bursting open of the gates of heaven”--so finished the old Tohunga
his last song of creation--“was the work of Tamatea.
Dim was the light at first, but faster and more powerful became the
blows of Tamatea upon the hangi (oven) in which all that was left of
Tu-taka-hina-hina, a mighty ancestor of the Maori people, was roasting;
and at last his blows burst the gate that closed in the days. And day
came, and the full and long day came. The people of the world, now freed
from darkness, looked around, and they could see how many had died during
the everlasting darkness; and they could see how very few survived.
At last they saw with wonder how Tamatea, instead of Tangaroa, now took
the Dawn of Morning in his keeping, and they knew that the time of the
Many Days had come, and they cried full of joy and gladness: ‘Truly,
Tamatea, this is the Dawn of our days!’”
Then the old friend pointed with a bony finger towards the Sun and spoke
no more.
[Illustration: THE BREAKING OPEN OF THE GATES OF HEAVEN]
XIX
A TANGI
[Illustration: TE HEU-HEU]
Like a filled sponge is the air lying over the pa, heavy and
sorrowful--filled with desolate cries. Dismal wails issue from the groups
which surround the dead chief, men and women howling, dancing, and
distorting their faces.
The wailing lies like a cloud upon the earth, and hangs like fog around
the groups. A sharp shriek pierces the air, or a shouted sentence in
honour of the dead chief cuts the fog; and again everything unites into a
monotonous, heart-breaking lament.
The dead chief was a Rangatira-Tohunga, and deep is the sorrow of his
people from the mountains and his people from the lake. The women of his
next relatives cut their breasts with sharp-edged shells, bleeding, and
howling in their pain and sorrow.
Tribe upon tribe nears with dismal lament: all are received by the old
women with the long-drawn, piercing cry of welcome to the Tangi. The
women march in front; they have flowers wound around their heads, and
wave flowers and twigs and leaves in their outstretched arms up and down,
up and down--a sign of sorrow. Crying and sobbing follow the men, whose
heads are bent and whose gestures betoken the deepest grief--warlike
figures, with tattoed faces bestrewn with tears.
In long lines they approach. Canoe after canoe brings ever new hapus
(parties), and each approaches in a long line loudly howling: louder and
louder grow the howls till the hapu stands before the dead chief, who is
covered with the red feather-mat of his rank; and there the whole mass of
people is uniting in terrible dirge, dancing and distorting their faces,
in which each new arrival joins. All nature seems to lament: the wide
lake, the hills, the forests upon the hills and the cloud-covered heads
of the mountains--all is united in grief.
Slowly night descends and covers the dirge in darkness.
Great was the mana of the dead Rangatira; terrible was his death; and
great sorrow fills the hearts of his people.
The star-lit night is wonderfully clear, and looks down upon the dead
chief in his red garment of the Rangatira, surrounded by the treasures of
his people; in his hand the beautiful greenstone weapon, the famous mere
Pahi-kaure.
Slowly the moon ascends over the murmuring waves of the lake, and streams
peacefully her soft light down upon the thousands who are sleeping around
her dead Rangatira.
[Illustration]
TE REINGA, THE MAORI SPIRIT-LAND
The empty forms of men inhabit there;
Impassive semblances, images of air.--_The Odyssey._
In the extreme north of the North Island of New Zealand is the
Muri-whenua, the Land’s End, where the never-resting surges thunder
at the feet of the bare rocky capes, and the giant sea-kelp swirls in
long snaky masses round the fabled gateway to the Maori spirit-land.
For here is Te Reinga, otherwise called Te Rerenga-Wairua, or the Place
where the Spirits take their Flight. Te Reinga is a long craggy ridge
that dips down to the ocean, ending in a rocky point whence the ghosts
of the departed take their final plunge into the realms of darkness and
oblivion. The souls (wairua) of the dead, the moment they are released
from their earthly tenements, travel northwards until they arrive at the
Land’s End of Ao-tea-roa. As they near the Reinga, crossing sand-dune and
stony cliff, treading with viewless feet the wild precipices whose bases
are ever licked ravenously by the wilder ocean, the spirits bethink them
of their old homes. And they pause awhile on the wind-swept heights, and
gaze backwards over the long and dreary way by which they came; and they
wail aloud, and lacerate themselves after the fashion of the mourners
of this world, with sharp splinters of volcanic glass (mata-tuhua), and
in proof thereof these mata are to be seen there to this day by living
man. They deck their heads with paréparé, or mourning chaplets of green
leaves, and their weird, ghostly wails for the Land of Light they are
leaving mingle with the melancholy voice of the ocean winds. The long
flax leaves which spring from the rocky soil on these heights above the
Reinga are often found knotted and twisted together in a peculiar manner.
The pakeha says this is the work of the ever restless winds and eddying
gales which sweep the Land’s End. But to the Maori those knotted leaves
are the work of the sad spirits of their departed, tied by the ghosts
as they pass along to the gates of Po, to show their sorrowing friends
the way they took in leaving this world of day. And the waterfalls cease
their sound as the ghosts flit by;
Trembling the spectres glide, and plaintive vent
Thin hollow screams, along the steep descent.
Down along the narrow ridge to the tideway they move, until they reach
the ghostly leaping-place, tapu to the _manes_ of the innumerable
multitude of dead. Here grew a venerable pohutukawa tree, gnarled and
knotty, with great ropy roots trailing to the tide. By these roots the
spirits dropped to the sea, loosing their last grip of Ao-tea-roa to
the dirge of the screaming sea-birds and the moaning waves. Below, the
tossing sea-kelp opens a moment to receive the wairua, and then the dark
waters close over them for ever. This is the Tatau-o-te-Po, the Door of
Death, which is the entrance to the gloomy Kingdom of Miru, the Goddess
of Eternal Night.
Many an Ossianic concept, many a weird and poetic fancy, is woven by the
Maoris round this haunted spot. This is a fragment of an ancient lament
for the dead, sung to this day at Maori tangis:
[Illustration: TE REINGA]
“E tomo, e Pa
Ki Murimuri-te-Po,
Te Tatau-o-te-Po.
Ko te whare tena
O Rua-Kumea,
O Rua-toia,
O Miru ra-e!
O tuhouropunga,
O kaiponu-kino.
Nana koe i maka
Ki te kopae o te whare i!”
(“Enter, oh sire,
The gates of that last land,
So dread and dark;
The Gates of the Endless Night.
For that is the dwelling
Of Rua-kumea,
Of Rua-toia,
Of the grim goddess Miru,
The ever-greedy one.
’Tis she who hurleth thee
To the deep shadows of her gloomy house.”)
And, again, the tribal bards, lamenting over their dead, chant this
centuries-old poem:
“Now like an angry gale,
The cold death-wind pierceth me through.
O chiefs of old,
Ye have vanished from us like the moa-bird,
That ne’er is seen of man.
O lordly totara-tree!
Thou’rt fallen to the earth,
And naught but worthless shrubs remain.
I hear the waves’ loud tangi
On the strand of Spirit Land,
Where souls, borne from this world of light,
Cast one last look behind.
The rolling seas surge in at Taumaha
Singing their wave-song for the dead
Who have forever vanished from our eyes.”
XX
NGAWAI.
[Illustration]
Dreamily is Ngawai staring into the embers, whilst the pale new morning
is crawling through the spaces between the fern-stems which form the
walls of the mountain-whare (hut).
Cold and pale at first appear the long stripes painted over the floor,
till they change slowly into warmer and more glowing colours, lighting
up the calabashes, the nets, the paddles, and the mats, which hang on
the walls smoke-blackened under the raupo roof. The stripes of daylight
are able, too, to light up Ngawai’s eyes, which stare into the nearly
burnt-out embers. More fiery glow the stripes, and suddenly they flood
the whare with wonderful golden light: it is pure gold, through which,
like music, the blue smoke ascends to the roof. Now the Sunshine pours
in at the door, and with it the wonderful picture of the mountain-lake,
reflecting the mountain giants, to the astonished eye. And in all the
beautiful world life commences again with laughter and happiness--the
laughter and happiness of the parting day.
Slowly is the sun wandering his way in the skies; up to the height of
midday he wanders; the shades grow longer, and Rangi-o-mohio, a very old
woman, the daughter of the famous Rangatira Te Heu-heu, is still relating:
“Listen: A great procession is ascending with much noise and shouting and
frolic the barren wilderness around the stone-body of Tongariro--a great
procession of Tohungas, warriors, women, and children.
Ah, Iwikau the Rangatira is leader, and they carry the bones of Te
Heu-heu, my father.--Ah, Te Heu-heu, he was my father! Ah, with his bones
we wander and crawl and climb over the lonely wilderness. Ah, he was the
Rangatira over the lands--but, my son, look upon the greatest Rangatira
of all the lands: look upon the Tongariro-tapu!”
Ngawai listens to the narrative of the old Rangi-o-mohio whilst her eyes
are gazing upon the sacred Tongariro. The moon has risen over the lake,
and a fine silvery gleam is glittering upon the snow of the mountain,
which is sending its beautiful column of silver high up into the skies.
Then once more Ngawai looks sorrowfully back, and goes on her way to her
people in the distant pa.
[Illustration]
THE BURIAL OF TE HEU-HEU ON TONGARIRO
This is Rangi-a-mohio’s story:
Iwikau, the brother of the dead Rangatira Te Heu-heu, and chief now over
the tribe of the Ngati-tu-wharetoa, is the leader of a large procession
of sorrowing, weeping people of the tribe. The four greatest warriors of
the tribe carried the carved box which contained the bones of Te Heu-heu;
it was painted red, and adorned with white albatross-feathers.
The whole tribe had decided to give their dead Rangatira the mightiest
burial-ground in all Ao-tea-roa--the crater of Tongariro-tapu!
Truly, the mountain Tongariro shall swallow the bones of the Rangatira,
that they never may fall in the hands of man--perhaps enemies.
The sharp-edged coke-rocks cut the feet of the bearers, and the sulphur
in the air is the deadliest foe to frolic--and what can be properly done
without frolic in Maoriland? The feet of the bearers begin to bleed, the
incantations of the Tohungas grow weaker; less overbearing, too, become
the songs of defiance which Iwikau is shouting to the gods: silence and
ghostly fright fall upon the multitude.
Deeper now are the precipices, steeper the rocks, and hellish the
sulphurous fumes; but high above still towers the crater, the summit of
Tongariro, the mighty grave of the Rangatira! The sacred mountain shall
swallow the bones of the sacred chief--as the base of the mountain, in a
frightful landslip, has swallowed his life!
Great is the conception, and bravely they try to carry it into effect
beneath the mighty column of steam and sulphur which Tongariro is
streaming out and which the heaven is pressing down again upon the
people, in wrathful defiance of its sanctity.
Distant thunder rolls, shaking the ground, and the sulphur-fumes press
fiercely beneath the broadening steam-column. Hard and heavy breathe the
bearers; terror at the temerity of the undertaking, which violates the
sacredness of the mountain, grows in the heart of their leader.
The vast world stretches all around, and the people who surround the dead
Rangatira seem tiny and powerless as the mountain defends his sacred
crater with mighty bursts of steam and smoke and rolling thunder and
suffocating fumes. Overawed by terror the strength of the bearers fails:
they let fall their burden upon a rock; the hearts of the bravest are
trembling.
The sanctity of Tongariro-tapu cannot be violated; no, not even by the
sacred bones of the Rangatira; and fear grows overpowering beneath the
still high-towering, angry crater-summit.
None dares touch the remains of Te Heu-heu again; one and all let them be
where they are, upon the rock, overtowered and defended by the majestic
summit, with its rolling, thundering, steaming crater--and down they
tumble, down, down, helter skelter, in wild and fearful fright they run,
a shouting, shrieking body of men, possessed by overpowering terror of
the sacred giant. Down, down.
But high up in the sacred regions of Tongariro lie bleaching the bones of
the greatest Rangatira of the mountain people----
Maui Pomare, M.D., the grandson of a famous chief, gave me, at parting,
this lament composed by the wife of his ancestor:
“Behold! far off, the bright evening star
Rises--our guardian in the dark,
A gleam of light across my lonely way.
Belov’d, wer’t thou the Evening Star,
Thou wouldst not, fixed, so far from me remain.
Let once again thy spirit wander back,
To soothe my slumbers on my restless couch,
And whisper in my dreams sweet words of love.
Oh! cruel Death, to damp that beauteous brow
With Night’s cold softly falling dews.
Rau-i-ru, Keeper of Celestial Gates,[3]
There comes to thee a lovely bride
Borne from me on Death’s swollen tide.
Belov’d, thy wandering spirit now hath passed
By pendant roots of clinging vine
To Spirit Land, where never foot of man
Hath trod--whence none can e’er return--
Paths to the Gods which I not yet have seen.
Belov’d, if any of that host of Heaven
Dare ask of thee thy birth or rank,
Say thou art of that great tribe
Who, sacred, sprang from loins of Gods.
As stands lone Kapiti, a sea-girt isle,
And Tararua’s solitary range,
So I to-day stand lonely midst my grief.
My bird with sacred wings hath flown away
Far from my ken, to Spirit Land.
I would I were a Kawau, resolute
To dive into the inmost depths of time,
To reappear at my beloved’s side
Amidst the throng upon the further shore.
Belov’d, I soon will join thee there!
I come! Await me at the gates!
My spirit frets; how slow is time.”
[3] The god who receives the spirits.
[Illustration: THE BURIAL]
THE END
[Illustration]
Printed at
The Edinburgh Press
9 and 11 Young Street