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The Maori Race

Chapter XVIII. The Future World.—Ghosts.—Notion Of Scientific Facts

Chapter XVIII. The Future World.—Ghosts.—Notion Of Scientific Facts.

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The Future World.

When dealing with this subject as it appeared to the minds of an ancient people like the Maori, we must be prepared for some confusion of ideas and contradictions of relation. Even in faiths like those of Christianity and Buddhism, which have survived through many centuries of changing thought, there is, in spite of decisions of councils and mountains of theological literature, much that awakes conflicting judgments, and little that receives universal acceptance. It is not to be wondered at then, where there has been no standard of orthodoxy beyond a general belief in that which was taught by the priesthood of the hour as revealing the will of the gods and as the inherited wisdom of ancestors, that there should be discrepancies as to the evidence, haziness of belief, and that individuals should not in all cases hold exactly the same idea as to the future world and its inhabitants. Still there page 408 was in the land of the Maori a fairly general consensus of opinion as to the nature and character of the realm into which the souls of the dead departed.

The reason given for the necessity of having an Underworld for the spirits of mortals is said to have been the unfilial conduct of the children of Heaven and Earth (Rangi and Papa) in rending apart their parents. Father-Heaven said, “Let our children return to me and be supreme as we are, having power over the elements,” but Mother-Earth responded, “No. They shall return to me. Evil and ungrateful were they in their rebellion against their parents, so when they have dwelt awhile in daylight they shall enter again the bosom of her from whom they sprang. There will I care for them for ever, for, though wicked, they are still my children, and I their tender mother. Death must they know, O Heaven, and not be immortal as their parents are.”

At the most northerly point of New Zealand, near Cape Maria Van Diemen, is “The Spirits' Leap” (Rerenga Wairua). Its correct name is Mori a nuku, but is sometimes called Reinga. It is, however, only the entrance to Reinga. It is situated where, above a sandy beach, a low point juts out into the sea, and here grew (till a year or so ago) a Pohutukawa tree* that sent a long root down to the beach. By this root the spirits slid or leapt downwards and entered the path to Hades (Reinga). Hence arose the proverbial page 408a Taepaea Mawha, Rotorua. page 409 saying “He has slid down the Pohutukawa tree” — meaning “He is dead.” Spirits moving towards this point were clothed in the leaves of certain trees, the wharangi, makuku, and horopito, and their road, “The Path of Souls,” was called Paerau. The spirits of inland dwellers carried palm leaves (nikau) in their hands, while those of coast natives bore bunches of pingao grass. On reaching a place called Te Taumata-i-Haumu, the spirits left these leaf-garments and diving through the seas breaking at the entrance of Ohiwa River (Te Tuara o Kaniwa) reached Haumu, the portal of Hades, entering the Reinga unclothed and naked. The Rarawa tribe that lived near the North Cape asserted that they knew a great battle had been fought somewhere when they heard the voices of many souls in the air passing towards the Spirits' Leap. They also knew whether the spirits were those of chiefs or of inferior men, because the souls of slaves, etc., had to pass beneath the raised food-stores (pataka), while those of the chiefs went on one side. Of course these spirits were only visible to the Seers. In moving towards Spirits' Leap all souls necessarily journeyed from South to North, therefore every food-store in which kumara, fish, or fern-root was stored was built with its longest axis North and South, lest the passage of some spirit should taint the contents by passing over it instead of under or aside. These varieties of food were themselves offspring of the gods, and therefore not to be defiled by the touch or presence page 410 of the dead. Sometimes in spite of this precaution the spirits contaminated the food in their passage; if they did so it was shown either by the eatables themselves becoming rotten, or by their being found smeared with red ochre, a thing that would ensure such articles not being devoured.

When the spirit reached the Leaping Place it stayed awhile weeping and lamenting that it had to go down into the darkness and leave this world of daylight where dwelt all friends and things beloved of man. On the cliff was a pile of obsidian flakes and with one of these the soul lacerated itself in a similar way to that in which its relatives were behaving as a sign of mourning at the funeral feast. Then it slid down the tree and stood upon the rock at the entrance to the lower world, while against this rock beat for ever from below the sound of wailing and lamentation. The waters rushed upwards, the beds of floating kelp were swirled aside, and the path stood revealed. Here was Haumu, the entrance to the Shades. Onward the spirit passed till it reached a great light and found that the world below was not in darkness but in twilight. Onward still, till there was found a wall across the way; if the soul passed above the wall it could yet return to earth, but if it went underneath the wall it had to abandon hope. In the Reinga was a lake surrounded with hills and the shades of the dead lived on the banks of this lake. When a spirit arrived it would alight on one of the hills and wait till the question was asked by some shade, “Do you belong to me?” If page 411 the shade was not that of a parent (ancestor) or relation the spirit would give a negative reply, but if it was one of the same family the head of the newcomer would jerk backward as a sign of the affirmative. Then the spirit hovered down near the ground and assumed its bodily shape. The shadows of friends and ancestors offered welcome and food, but such food if accepted would ensure that the partaker dwelt thenceforth in “The Land of No-Return.” After a time spent in this zone or stage of existence, the spirit died a second time and had to pass through a narrow place guarded by the genii Tawhaitiri and Tuapiko. These genii stood one on each side bending towards one another, and the soul must pass between them. If a light spirit it escaped (“as a bird from the snare of the fowler”), but if gross and clogged it would be caught and destroyed by the guardians of the pass. Through stage after stage of the lower world the spirit passed by dying afresh at the entrance to each “circle” and it is thought that some reached Night (Po) at last, but Po was properly the vast shadowy abode of heroes and demi-gods. The ordinary soul found in Ameto, the lowest Hell, a final extinction. Some souls are said to have returned to earth as flies and some as moths (purehua) which latter were hence called “souls of men” (wairua tangata). The black moth was especially an emblem of the soul, the Psyche, and was left behind as a token of human immortality when Tawhaki, the lightning god, went up to heaven with Parekoritawa.

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This may be accepted as a general summary of the ideas held by the Maori as to the future state and the process of entering it, but there are some widely different accounts given by those who have returned from the Under World.

An old lady living near Rotorua died and the corpse was left lying in the house, the door and window being fastened up and the whole place tapu. Her nephew, a few days after, was paddling a canoe on the lake with some companions when he saw a figure sitting on the shore and beckoning to him. On drawing near the beach he recognised his aunt who related her experiences. She said that when she died and her spirit had descended into the abyss by means of a trailing vine she found herself near a river that had a beach of sand along which an enormous bird, taller than a man, was striding towards her. She was so frightened that she tried to get up the cliff again, but looking round saw a canoe approach. In this was seated an old man who took her on board and so enabled her to escape from the bird. As she was being ferried across she asked the old man whereabouts her ancestors were to be found. The direction was pointed out to her as she landed, and she passed along a path bordered by trees and objects familiar to her in the upper world till she reached a village where her father and many of her vanished relations greeted her and sang a song of welcome. Her father, however, questioned her closely as to what would become of her child without her, and insisted upon her going page 413 back to take care of his grandchild. He warned her against eating food in that place, but she might have yielded to the pressing insistence of the others if the father had not prevented her tasting it. It appeared like baked sweet-potato but was really a very filthy mess. Her father led her back to the canoe and launched it, but their progress was impeded by a young man who insisted that she should stay among the shadows with him. The two were able at last to free themselves from the importunate spirit, who, discouraged, went away angry and left them to cross. When the canoe reached the side of the river nearest to human abodes the father produced two enormous kumara roots and instructed her to plant them on her return, the crop to be kept especially for his grandchild. Then he said farewell, bidding her haste as much as possible. She turned toward the cliff but was pursued by two malignant infant spirits (kahukahu) who strove to drag her back. She grasped the vine, but before she could get far they would drag her down again. At last she threw one of her embarassing kumara at them. One sprite picked it up and began to eat, leaving her alone, so she threw the other at the second imp which also went after its prize. Seizing hold of the vine she clambered up to the world of day and flew back to her body, but found that the doors and windows of the house where it lay were fastened, and that she was too weak to force them open. She had waited till morning, and then, finding a bowl of red ochre and water, drank some. This page 414 refreshed her and enabled her to succeed in opening the door and creeping back to her body which was then restored to life. Straying down the beach she had found her nephew.

There are several points worth noticing in this story. First, that of being able to return if food was not tasted in the Shadow-land; second, that there must be a certain amount of “materialisation” in the spirit of a dead person or it could have passed through such an object as a door or wall. Next, that of “crossing the Death-River” and of Charon with his boat. Lastly, that the souls of the departed take much interest in their family affairs.

If people have returned from Spirit Land it was only when a state of trance or unconciousness had simulated death, but indeed we all go towards it when fainting or in a swoon, and only return if no food is partaken of in those grey dwellings. A man named Te Atarahi spent five days and nights there, and was supposed by his friends to have left the earth for ever. Two women, who were out at work cutting flax (phormium), noticed someone among the leaves sucking the honey from the flax-flowers, and one of them said to her friend, “Surely that is Te Atarahi,” but the other responded, “No, Te Atarahi is dead.” Then they noticed that the hair of the man's head was gone and the skin of his shoulders hung loose and wrinkled. So the women returned to the village and reported what they had seen, but they were disbelieved. The men went and page 415 examined the grave, and though at first they thought it undisturbed they noticed that a little way off there was an opening in the ground, so they went farther to the place the women pointed out, and found Te Atarahi himself. The priest was sent for, and, having recited an incantation, he had the man removed to a sacred place. In this he remained many days, while the priest uttered prayers and spells and all the people looked on. Gradually the resuscitated chief began to recover his usual appearance, and related that he had been to the Reinga and had there been met by several of his dead relatives who warned him not to eat the food of that place—afterwards he was sent back to the world of the living. He described the Reinga as an excellent place; he told of the great number of the inhabitants and of their excellent food.

There is a variant of the Orpheus story also, but it ends more happily than the Greek legend does with its loss of Eurydice. A certain chief and his wife lived happily together, till on the birth of a daughter the mother died in childbed. The man left that place and journeyed far away till he reached “The Great Forest of Tane” and there he found friends and took another wife. A son was born and named Miru; this boy was an object of great interest to his father who took endless pains to train him as he grew to manhood. He taught him all the supreme kind of knowledge, incantations relating to the stars and seas and land and food, all the power of page 416 spells and witchcraft. When the son was perfect he went with his father to the side of a mighty river whereby grew a tree whose top touched the sky. By the power of the youth's incantations the tree was felled and reached across the river. This was the bridge. The boy asked his father, “Have I no relatives in this world? Are you and I the only people alive?” His father answered, “You have a sister, but she dwells in another place.” Then Miru resolved to set out in search of his sister and journeyed till he came to that place in which she was, but he did not know her. He found young people engaged in sport; they were throwing darts (teka). Miru procured a dart for himself and joined in the sport, beating all the other competitors. His sister (unknowing their relationship) fell in love with him, but he did not love her, and rejected her addresses, so she strangled herself. There were funeral ceremonies, and the young man went for his father that the two together might attend. When the father saw the dead girl he said, “That was your sister.” Then the young man mourned and said, “Do not bury my sister till I return.” He went away, and on, and on, till he came to a place where a canoe was floating, and in this, with his companions, he embarked. They paddled away to the Leaping place of Souls (at Cape Maria) and there they cast anchor. Miru said to his comrades, “When you see the cable of the anchor shaking, pull it up, but wait here for me.” Then he dived down to the bottom of the sea and entered the cave of the Spirits' page 417 path. When he arrived at the home of Kewa, the chief of the spirits, he found the form of his sister there. He had with him nets where-with to catch the spirit of his sister, but she could not be tempted forth from her house. He initiated sports and games to induce his sister to come outside, but she refused all his overtures until he had set up a swing, and then she came forth. Miru taking her in his arms, swung with her. Higher and higher they swung, and on reaching the highest point he let go and flew off like a dart from the throwing-stick (kotaha) till he alighted outside the boundary of the Spirit World. Thence they went on together till they arrived at the place where the cable of the canoe hung down and then they were hauled up to the world of life by their friends. When Miru reached the village where the corpse of his sister was lying he laid the spirit upon the dead body, which revived, and the girl lived again.

Another form of this story is told in the better known legend of Pare and Hutu as related in the South Island. There, however, the hero is a lover, not a brother, and Spirit Land is under the earth. The visitor threw his victorious dart, rejected the proffered love of the admiring princess, and the lady killed herself, as in the other story. Her people, being highly incensed at her death and the brutal unsusceptibility that had provoked it, were about to slay the offender when he begged time to try and restore the frail fair one to life. Journeying towards the Under World he arrived at the dwelling of The Great Lady of page 418 Night and asked her to direct him to the place where he might find the spirit of Pare, but was contemptuously answered. The youth showed no resentment at her manner but had the tact to present his precious greenstone club (mere) to the scornful goddess who thereupon pointed out the road on which the spirits of men travel. (Dogs go to Hades too, but by a different path.) She warned him against eating the food of the dead, and told him to bow his head when descending to the dark world. She added, “When you are near the world below a wind from beneath will blow on you and will raise your head up again.” [These “Winds that blow between the worlds” are often mentioned in Maori legend, such as that of “the winds of Ururangi” which blew on Tawhaki on his ascent to heaven, and remind one of Dante's “winds of hell” on which the spirits of Paolo and Francesca with those of a million others were seen to float.] When Hutu arrived at the dwelling place of departed souls he tried with diverting games to lure the spirit of his sweetheart forth, but she obstinately refused until he had invented a new game. He induced the people (the spirits) to bend down the top of a tree and when he was seated on it to let it go suddenly, he of course flying up into the air. Enchanted with this original and exciting game Pare ventured to his side saying, “Let me also play.” He put his arm round her, and called to his companions, “Pull the head of the tree down, down, even to the earth.” They did so and on its being suddenly released Pare and Hutu were thrown by the page 419 jerk so high that they became entangled in the roots of the trees and shrubs that grow through the soil of the upper world. (O Sancta Simplicitas!) Hutu forced a way for both up through these, and restored the spirit of his beloved to her body, married her and “lived happy ever afterwards.”

The curiosity attributed to the female sex combined with a daring and initiative not always accompanying it, accounts for a visit paid by two women to Spirit Land. They took with them a supply of dried kumara and slid down the pohutakawa tree. Having entered the cave at the entrance of Te Reinga they groped their way for a long time in the dark, but at last saw a tiny glimmer of light far off and directed their steps towards it. As they proceeded the light grew stronger until at last they saw three old spirits with hoary hair seated at a fire composed of three pieces of burning wood. One of the women took some of the sweet-potatoes and offered them to the spirits in exchange for some of the fire, which, being spiritual fire, was a thing to be desired. The old creatures were so overcome with astonishment to see living beings in the abode of the dead that they could only stare in petrified astonishment, whereupon one of the bold women snatched up a firebrand and dashed off with it, leaving her sweet-potatoes as payment. The daring act roused the old ghosts from their stupor, but they were not able to catch up with their fleet-footed visitors until they were just taking their last step outside the world of shadows. There, however, page 420 the woman who was carrying the fire was caught by the heel, and she, not being willing to have her prize taken from her, whirled it up into the sky. There it stuck, and has been called “the moon” ever since!

Mataora, the inventor of the system of tattooing the face in curves (as we see it at present), was also known as one of those who had been permitted to escape from the world of the dead.

Sometimes the mode of restoration from death, that is, of drawing the soul back again to the dead body, was peculiar. A chief named Pawa was so incensed on the receipt of certain evil tidings that by means of a recited spell he slew the messenger who had brought the bad news. Pawa, however, had been eating a barracouta fish at the time the messenger arrived, and, repenting of his hasty conduct, he laid the fish on the breast of the corpse and the soul returned to the body. While on this subject, it may be remarked that it was well to have as herald or messenger some relative of the chief to whom bad news was to be taken, as there was a probability of the messenger being killed in an outburst of grief or passion if a stranger.

A certain lad took a calabash to a deep pool in the river in order to fetch water, but, on pressing the vessel down to fill it, it slipped from his hands. He reached out for it, missed, and fell into the water; he was drowned and his belly filled with water. His parents found the body and it was carried to the village to be wailed over. The spirit of the boy returned page 421 to earth, bewildering the living, and passed into a man who acted as medium for it. That man was walking on a high steep cliff by the sea and was perplexed by his dœmon who said to him, “All is solid land” when there was but water. The medium sank down into the depths of the sea. There he saw all the great multitudes of fishes which are food for man, swimming here and there and darting in all directions. Again that man appeared on the surface of the sea and he knew that shore, and the place where he formerly lived, so he went to the beach and greeted his relatives who welcomed him back from the worlds where no living man dwells. In the morning they embarked in their canoes and sailed to the place pointed out to them by that inspired one; there they found great shoals of fish and filled the canoes to overflowing.

The cradle-land of the Maori, Hawaiki, is regarded in the Cook Islands (Rarotonga, etc.) as being in the Spirit World, and this Avaiki as they call it has no earthly existence. Something of the same sort appears now and then in Maori legend. Thus an ancient tradition says, “Then that boy went quickly down below to the Unseen World (Reinga) to observe and look about at the steep cliffs in Hawaiki.” It is this confusion of ideas between the past and future which makes the Spirit World and the Under World seem one place, and puts the land of ghosts close under our feet, so close that (as we saw in the legend of Pare and Hutu) the roots of our trees are growing in the roof of the Nether World. When the hero page 422 Maui wished to visit the Spirit Land he pulled the centre post of the house to one side, and felt the wind from Hades blowing up through the aperture. “Looking down he saw fire, men, trees and the ocean; he also saw men busily employed in the pursuit of their several occupations in this world.”1 There seems to have been no effort in the native mind to conceive of spiritual occupations for spiritual creatures, any more than there is in our own eschatology. When Tawhaki went up to Heaven he found settlements, houses, slaves, canoes, axes, etc., and the inhabitants following the occupations of men. Even Rehua, the god in the highest Heaven, greeted Rupe in the native fashion and ordered a fire to be lighted at which birds were cooked, etc. The spirits acted just as if they were on Upper Earth, and apparently had means of information as to how things were going among men. It is related that a certain young chief acquired celebrity among his tribesmen as a fencer with the spear, and the fame of his dexterity reached the shade of his father who had also in his day been a great spearsman. So the old man returned to earth on purpose to have a duel with his son, and finding that his offspring was unable to ward his thrusts or in any way equal the skill of the older warrior the victor contentedly retired to rest in his grave with his shadowy laurels. Such conduct might be considered as undignified in those whose battles we have hoped were over, but they compare worthily with the European spirits who at “seances” perform on the accordion page 423 and the banjo to the delectation of many of our own generation.

The great difference between the conception of the Maori Spirit World and our own is that the native idea had nothing therein of the future life being a state where reward or punishment was meted out according to the quality of the mortal life. There were ten heavens and ten hells, but precisely how they were gained does not appear. Great chiefs like Tawhaki or Tane went up to the highest heaven, but then these chiefs were themselves mighty gods not human beings. Tawhaki when young was killed and his soul went to the Under World. It is told of him “At the time his spirit was in the other world Hine had called, but called in vain for him, for how could he answer when he was like one dead and his spirit had gone towards Ameto?”2 Ameto (Extinction) is the lowest hell where the human soul fades into nothingness. It appears, however, that in some unexplained way his spirit returned to earth, and, after his marriage to the Celestial Maiden, he climbed the vine that hangs from heaven to earth and assumed divine powers. So far as can be gathered, it would seem that the heavens were in no way a place of reward for virtuous mortals, but the abodes of the gods and of supernatural beings only.

If the sacred food (popoa), prepared at the funeral of a chief, had not been eaten by the High Priestess (tapairu) as a propitiation to the good guardian spirits in order to gain protection against the evil gods of the dead, the page 424 soul of the deceased became unclean (poke). There were several classes of spirits known as poke who were essentially unclean, especially the malignant demons (kahukahu) which had sprung from unborn children, but the spirits of dead men only became unclean if funeral rites were neglected. For this reason it was a great disgrace and trouble to a man if he had no legitimate child to make the propitiatory sacrifices. Hence the proverbs—“Without offspring, wailing” (Kahore he uri, he tangi), and “You exist having the death-song chanted” (Ka ora koe, ka pihea). The defiled spirit of such a neglected one was never capable, as those of unborn infants were, of malignant and dreadful actions, but it could plant the germs of disease and trouble for other wicked ones to nourish.

* Metrosideros tomentosa.

Ghosts.

As to ghosts proper as distinguished from evil spirits there were several varieties. There was the taepo (“Night Visitor”), which seems to have been any kind of supernatural being that made its presence known by mysterious tappings or rustlings on the thatch of the house at night. There was the second-sight ghost, generally the double of yourself, when you were “fey” and the sight of which portended death. A young Maori chief of unusual intelligence (Te Pou Tawera) related to me the following episode. “When I was a child my mother went out about noon to get water from the river. She crossed a fence, page 425 and when descending to the stream noticed a female sitting on the opposite bank, looking at the water. When my mother reached the edge of the stream the figure slowly raised itself to a standing position and looked across. My mother then saw that the other was also herself. She came back to us moaning and crying. She died a few weeks afterwards.”

The true ghost was the kehua. It was generally seen as one passed along a path at night or in the dusk. It would be found lying across the path, like a corpse. If you stepped over it, it would kill you. If you tried to avoid stepping over it by turning down a bye-path you would again find it lying in your track. Then you must go back. Probably it may have been the spirit of a friend or relative giving you a warning not to proceed in a certain direction, or to desist from the purpose then in your mind. If you were “fey” you would see the double of yourself lying in the path, and you would surely die within a short time. If the spirit of an absent friend presented itself indistinctly and with face averted that person was still alive, but was threatened with death; if the form and face were clearly seen the spirit had left the body. In one recorded instance a ghost appeared at night (but in the full light of a blazing fire) to a party of natives who were out hunting. Only two of the party, however, could see it. When they returned to their homes they found that the man whose spirit had appeared had died at the hour the ghost presented itself.

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The young Maori chief Te Pou Tawera, above mentioned (now, alas! himself in the World of Shadows) told me the following when speaking on this subject:—“I have seen but two ghosts. I never saw a kehua on the path. I was a boy at school, in Auckland, and one morning was asleep in bed when I found myself aroused by someone shaking me by the shoulder. I looked up and saw bending over me the well-known form of my uncle, whom I supposed to be at the Bay of Islands. I spoke to him, but the form became dim and vanished. The next mail brought me news of his death. Years passed away and I saw no ghost or spirit, not even when my father and mother died, and I was absent in each case. Then, one day I was sitting reading when a dark shadow fell across my book. I looked up and saw a man standing between me and the window; his back was turned to me. I saw from his figure that he was a Maori, and I called out to him, “O, friend!” He turned round and I saw my other uncle, Ihaka. The form faded away as the other had done. I had not expected to hear of my uncle's death, for I had seen him hale and strong a few days before. However, he had gone into the house of a missionary, and he (with several white people) was poisoned by eating tinned meat, the tin having been opened and the meat left in it all night. This is all I myself have seen of spirits.”

If one met a kehua (ghost) you had only to offer it some cooked food and it would instantly disappear, for ghosts, like all supernatural beings, disliked cooked food.

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Notions of Scientific Facts.

In conversation and in legend, the Maori mind blends knowledge arising from perception with strange superstitions and poetical fancies. This only to say that he shares in our common humanity, for Europeans, even among their cultured classes, cling to many a belief that will not bear the light of reason. The Maoris have, however, now and then made utterance of expressions which would cause a hearer to surmise either that they had insight into some deep truths of science, or that their forefathers had bequeathed them memories of a state of far higher culture than most people think it possible they had ever attained, or than even our own ancestors of a few centuries ago reckoned among their intellectual treasures.

We may instance the expression, “the world floating in space” as describing the earth. The knowledge that the earth does float in the universal ether and was not the solid floor of the whole Cosmos was revealed to us by Copernicus only a comparatively short time ago, although the philosophers of the ancient world certainly seem to have dimly discerned the scheme of the Solar System.* Again, the condition of the earth in early geologic ages appears to be alluded to in legend. Tane, as the creator, was warned page 428 that he would have to exercise his great power before the world could become habitable. The Hosts of Heaven called to Tane and said, “O Tane, fashion the outer part of the world; it is bubbling up.” The legend of “Fire and Water” (related in the next chapter) also seems to hint at a knowledge of the forces which strove together in geologic periods almost incalculably distant. It is a suggestion only that I advance and takes the shape, that the same reasoning power which causes our scientific men to consider that the whole earth was once in a molten condition, viz, the evidence of the plutonic or unstratified rocks also caused the invention of the legend that the Creator was warned that the outside of his new world was bubbling up. Similarly, the Deluge traditions themselves (wherever they originated) probably arose from men noticing the stratification of rocks and the evidence of marine remains on the tops of mountains or on elevated plains. The stories about these and other islands being hauled up out of the deep possibly had the like origin, viz, myth born from observation.

The Maoris had belief in the existence of huge monsters (taniwha) generally of saurian character and mostly water-dwellers. The geologic remains in New Zealand of the animals called by scientific men Maui-saurus and Taniwha-saurus, would make one believe that the Maori had seen such creatures, but it appears cosmically impossible. The tales are more probably reminiscences of the crocodile in other lands.

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There is in tradition one of these pseudo-scientific allusions that can hardly be explained by observation. I allude to the legend that Maui lengthened the days by catching the sun and making him go slower. It is a fact that the days are getting longer and longer. When the moon was thrown off (our teachers tell us) the earth's day was only three hours long, and in some far off future the length of the day and the year will coincide. How the Maoris learnt that at one time, as they say, the sun performed his journey so quickly that after he rose there was no time to get any work done before he set, it is impossible to say; but evidently they did know it. If the legend had its origin in natural observation on an even appreciably shorter day than ours, it must have travelled down the stream of time through periods from which the historian shrinks aghast.

Mingled with these glimpses of truth (if they are glimpses and not accident) there were the dense ignorances and wild guesses at the laws of nature which always accompany the vision of life as seen by primitive peoples. We find the childlike notion of the vault of the sky being sustained by props; that the moon wasted with sickness every month and had to bathe in the waters of life to renew herself; that earthquakes were caused by the god Ru-ai-moko turning over during his sleep in the Under World. The natives held that some trees were male and others female (perhaps a memory of the palm), that only female trees bore fruit, while others, such as kahikatea page 430 and toromiro were barren. The totara, matai and maire trees were in some cases male and in others female.

Mountains are spoken of which had shifted position, such as “Stony Mountain” (Maunga Pohatu) moved from Cape Kidnappers to its present locality. Of course there are stories as to the reasons of the exodus of such hills, and it is gravely related that a quarrel between the active volcano Tongariro and the now extinct volcano Mount Egmont caused the latter to move away from Taupo to Taranaki. Hills were sometimes ceremonially united in marriage, and such a ceremony (tatau pounamu, “The Greenstone Door,” also used at conclusion of a lasting peace) ensured perpetual alliance between the tribes dwelling on, or owning the wedded mountains.

Many of the legends and much of the ancestral teaching had origin in poetry. “The Rainbow” (Uenuku) married “The Mist” (Tairi-a-kohu), but he was unkind to her and she returned to the sky. “Rainbow” set out to find her, but died far away. In the double “Rainbow” (Kahukura) the fainter underneath bow is his wife (Tu-awhiorangi) and their child was “Whirlwind.” “Light Rain” (Hine-wai) was the sister of “Mist.” “The Sun” (Ra) married “Summer” (Hine Raumati) for six months and then married “Winter” (Hine Takurua for six months. Such teachings are scientific on one side, and poetic on the other.

A great monster named Parata, lying in mid-ocean, was to the Maori the cause of the page 431 tides. Inhaling and exhaling the waters of the mighty deep, he dwelt in a far-off home beyond our line of sea and sky. If a vessel went near it was liable to be drawn into the swirling vortex of the down-rushing currents, and hence arose the adage, applied to one in trouble, that he had fallen into “The throat of Te Parata.”. One of the spells used in witchcraft to bring evil upon a person ran thus, “Dreadful by beetling precipices, deep down in Ocean's depths, listen! obey! be quick, and be scattered off to the one side and the other side, that the mighty Parata may go to work. Parata! hear! blow thy irresistible, overwhelming tides strongly to the shore!”3 Parata is often alluded to in ancient legends. When Hina, the sister of Maui, had lost her husband through her brother's cruelty she appealed to the Parata and the Monsters of the ocean.4 The “Arawa” canoe on its famous voyage to New Zealand was nearly lost through the wickedness of one of the passengers provoking another to utter an invocation that carried the vessel into “The mouth of Parata.” Sometimes, however, the expression was used concerning any broken and stormy sea. The idea would seem to be pure myth were it not that in the Samoan and other voyages made by the great navigator Tangiia there is mention of a monstrous whirlpool in the sea, the Fa-fa (Maori, waha?) in which the voyagers were nearly engulphed. The notion may have had its origin in observation of the vast submarine volcanic disturbances which now and then heave up islands near the coast of the Tongan isles.

* Other Polynesians also possessed this point of knowledge. In Hawaii the ancient hymn to Lono (Rongo), which was last sung when they offered adoration to Captain Cook as that deity, ends, “and establish the day of light on the floating earth. Amen.”