The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead

he Pol

hing: of Christianity, though it had existed in the world for nearly eighteen hundred years, they had never heard: they were totally ignorant of the metals, and had made so little progress in the arts of life that in most of the islands pottery was unknown,[2] and even so simple an invention as that of bows and arrows for use in war had not been thought of.[3] Hence their condition was of great interest to students of the early history of man, since it presented to their observation the spectacle of a barbaric culture evolved from an immemorial past in complet

argument in favour of this theory is drawn from the Polynesian language, which belongs essentially to the same family of speech as the Melanesian and Malay languages spoken by the peoples who occupy the islands that intervene between Polynesia and the south-eastern extremity of the Asiatic continent.[5] The black Melanesian race occupies the south-eastern portion of New Guinea and the chain of islands which stretches in a great curve round the north-eastern coasts of Ne

olynesians on the east and the Malays on the west, represent the original inhabitants of the islands, while the Polynesians and Malays represent successive swarms of emigrants, who hived off from the Asiatic continent, and making their way eastward over the islands partially displaced and partially blent with the aborigines, modifying their own physical type in the process and exchanging their original language for that of the islanders, which, through their inability to assimilate it, they acquired only in corrup

enter into them now, but must confine myself to my immediate subject, the b

nd expert mariners, making long voyages in large well-built canoes: all possess a copious and comparatively well developed mythology; and all at the time of their discovery enjoyed, or perhaps we should rather say suffered from, a singular institution, half social, half religious, which may be summed up in the single Polynesian word taboo. Hence it would no doubt be possible to give a general account of the belief in human immortality which would hold good in outline for all the different branches of the Polynesian race; but such an account would necessarily be som

slands, the Society Islands, including Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands, and Hawaii or the Sandwich Islands.[10] All of them, except New Zealand, are within th

aoris of N

of the natives by English enquirers.[11] The place from which the Maoris came is unanimously designated as Hawaiki, an island or group of islands lying far to the north or north-east of New Zealand. Among English scholars there is some difference of opinion whether Hawaiki is to be identified with Hawaii, that is, the Sandwich Islands, or with Savaii, one of the Samoan or Navigators Islands, since Hawaii and Savaii are both dialectical variations of the New Zealander's pronunciation of Hawaiki

eacherous, and the Maoris regarded them with dislike and contempt; but their women looked with favour on the handsome Maori men, and a mixture of the two races was the result. This tradition both explains and is confirmed by the two different racial types which still exist side by side or blent together among the Maoris. It seems, therefore, highly probable that before the advent of the Maoris the North Island of New Zealand was occupied by a people of inferior culture belonging to the Melanesian stock, who may themselves have had a strain of Polynesian blood in their veins and some Polynesian words in their language. This at least is suggested by some features in the Maori traditions about them. For these savages told the Maoris that they were the

sweet potato, their favourite food. For this purpose they used sand, and in the Waikatoo district, where the root was formerly much cultivated, deep excavations, like the gravel pits of England, may still be seen, from which the natives extracted sand to fertilise their gardens.[20] Moreover, they cultivated various species of native flax and used the fibre for the manufacture of garments, first scraping it and drying it in the sun, then steeping it in water, and afterwards beating it with wooden mallets. Thus prepared the flax was dyed black or reddish brown and woven into cloth with broad borders of neat and varied patterns. The stronger and coarser fibres were made into string, lines, and cordage of all sorts.[21] The Maoris also built large and magnificently adorned canoes,[22] in which they made long voyages; for example, they invaded and conquered the Chatham Islands, which lie to the eastward across the open sea about five hundred miles distant from the nearest coast of New Zealand.[23] In hunting they had little op

he Maoris concerning

s closely the imperceptible entity which he calls his soul with one or both of these perceptible objects. To this general rule the Maori is apparently no exception. He has two words which he specially uses to designate the human spirit or soul: one is wairua, the other is hau.[30] Of these words, wairua, the more usual name, is said to mean also a shadow, an unsubstantial image, a reflection, as of a person's face from a polished surface;[31] and we may surmise that these were the original and proper meanings of the term. Similarly hau, which is described as "the vital essence or life principle" in man,[32] appears primarily to mean "wind,"[33] from which we may infer that in its application to man it denotes properly the breath. The idea of the soul as a breath appears in the explanation which was given to

less distant, where it converses with the spirits of other people, whether alive or dead. Hence no well-bred Maori would waken a sleeper suddenly by shaking him or calling out to him in a loud voice. If he must rouse him, he will do it gradually, speaking to him at first in low tones and then raising his voice by degrees, in order to give the truant soul fair warning and allow it to return at leisure.[36] Believing in the power of the soul to wander far away and converse with other spiritual beings in sleep, the Maoris naturally paid great attention to dreams, which they fancied were often sent them by the gods to warn them of coming events. All dreams were supposed to have their special si

might bring the spirits of their enemies, and hang them and destroy them there; and when they had dug the pit, muttering the necessary incantations, they took large shells in their hands to scrape the spirits of their enemies into the pit with, whilst they muttered enchantments; and when they had done this

ired to slay a person by witchcraft, he would often dig a hole in the ground, and standing over it with a cord in his hand would let one end of the cord hang down into the hole. He then recited an inca

practice. For magic is a game at which two can play, and it sometimes happened that the spells of the besieged proved more powerful than those of the besiegers and enabled the garrison to defy all the attempts of the enemy to filch their souls from their bodies.[40] But even when the assailants were obliged to retire discomfited, they did not always lose heart, the resources of the magic art were not yet exhausted. On their return home the priest, nothing daunted by a temporary discomfiture, might betake himself again to his spells, and by crooning his incantations over a garment or a weapon belonging to one of his party, mig

he result of a pure accident, but sometimes they were intentional. For this fell purpose a malignant wizard would dig a hole, invoke the spirit of the man against whom he had a grudge, and when the spirit appeared over the hole in the form of a light, he would curse it, and the man whose soul was cursed would be sure to die, sooner or later; nothing could save him. The Uriwera, who dwelt dispersed among the forests and lonely hills of a wild mountainous region in the North Island, were reputed to be the greatest warlocks in all New Zealand. When they descended from their mountains to the coast, the lowlanders scarcely dared refuse them anything for fear of incurring their displeasure. It is said that in their magical rites they made a special use of the spittle of their destined victims; hence all visitors to their country were careful to conceal their spittle lest th

arts of magicians. So frequently, indeed, did this happen in former days that the Maoris of old apparently recognised no other cause of death, but imagined that every man and woman would naturally live for ever, if the thread of his or her life were not prematurely snipped by the abhorred shear

nto the world, or at least how men were prevented from en

ad omitted some of the prayers and purifications of the baptismal service. It was a fatal oversight, and the anxious father was struck with consternation at the thought, for too well he knew that the gods would punish the omission by causing his son Maui to die.[49] Yet did his son make a brave attempt to rescue all men from the doom of death and to make them live for ever. One day, after he had performed many feats and returned to his father's house, his father, heavy at heart and overcome with a foreboding of evil, said to him, "Oh, my son, I have heard from your mother and others that you are very valiant, and that you have succeeded in all feats that you have undertaken in your own country, whether they were small or great; but now that you have arrived in your father's country, you will perhaps be overcome." Then Maui asked his father, "What do you mean? what things are there that I can be vanq

y with leaden steps and slow; for of old the Sun was wont to speed across the firmament like a young man rejoicing to run a race. So forth fared the hero on his great enterprise to snatch the life of mortals from the very jaws of death. And there came to him to bear him company the small robin, a

t with laughter if you please." But his little friends were frightened at what they saw, and they answered, "Oh, sir, you will certainly be killed." And he answered them again, saying, "If you burst out laughing at me as soon as I get inside her, you will wake her up, and s

ng into the body of the giantess; their cheeks swelled up and grew purple, and they almost choked with suppressed emotion. At last the pied fantail could bear it no longer, and he suddenly exploded with a loud guffaw. That woke the old woman, she opened her eyes, and shut her jaws with a snap, cutting the hero clean through the middle, so that his legs dropped out of her mouth. Thus died Maui, but before he died he begat children, and son

he Maoris concerning

emed his or her respect for the dead. Sometimes relatives would hack off joints of their fingers as a token of grief. Mourners likewise cut their hair, the men generally contenting themselves with clipping or shaving it on one side only, from the forehead to the neck. The eyes of the dead were closed by the nearest relative; and the body dressed in the finest mats, decked with feathers, and provided with weapons, lay in state for a time. After the firs

aces again, the corpse was laid in a sort of canoe-shaped coffin and deposited among the branches of a tree in a grove, where it remained for several months. This burial in the branches of a tree seems to have been usually adopted for the bodies of commoners; the corpses of chiefs, enclosed in coffins, were placed in mausoleums, carved and painted red, which were raised on pillars. Whether buried in the earth or placed in a tree or on a stage, the body was left until the flesh had so far decayed as to permit of the bones being easily detached; there was no fixed time allowed for decomposition, it might vary from three months to six months, or even a year. When decay was thought to have proceeded far enough, the bones were dug up or taken down from the stage or tree and scraped; the ornaments also were removed from the skeleton and worn by the relatives. In the south, where the custom was to bury the dead in the ground, this disinterment took place four weeks after the burial; the bones were then buried again, but only to be dug up again after a longer interval, it might be

aped off and buried on the spot. A few old women, dressed in their best, oiled from head to foot, and plastered with raddle, received the skulls into their laps. While they held them thus, a funeral ode was sung and speeches, loud and long, were delivered. Then the bones were tied up, decked with feathers of the gannet, rolled up in blankets, and carried to their last place of rest in a sacred grove, where they were left, securely fastened up and gaudily decorated with red and white. Having thus discharged their duty to the dead, the living gave themselves up to festivity; they ate and drank, danced, sang, wh

the Rangatikikei District, and also by the tribes who occupied the Waimate Plains. An old earthwork fort near the present township of Manaia was the scene of many cremations of the Maori dead in former days. Again, it was a common custom for a raiding party to cremate their dead in the enemy's country, when there was no time to carry them home for the usual obsequies. The intention of burning them was to prevent the enemy from eating the bodies and making fish-hooks out of the bones. For a similar re

ustomary to decapitate the slain foes and dry their heads, which were then carried home and used as scarecrows or stuck on short stakes in the village, where they were jeered at and reviled. When the time came to plant the sweet potatoes, and the priests recited their s

hed by the priest.[59] A dying Maori, unable to eat a loaf which a missionary had offered to him, begged that it might be kept for his ghost, who, after his death, would come and fortify himself with it for the journey to his long home.[60] At Tanaraki the child of a chief was buried in its father's house, grasping in each of its little fists a taro for consumption in the other world. Over the grave were laid boards, and the family slept on them. When they thought that the child's body was sufficiently decayed, they dug it up, scraped the bones, and hung them in the verandah, where from time to time the priest recited spells to assist the soul in

was supposed to assist the soul to ascend to heaven. The priest next put a bulb of taro in the left hand of the corpse and chanted another incantation. After that, flaxen cords were tied with a slip-knot to a tassel of the mat in which the body was enshrouded, and a cord was placed in the hand of each child, boy and girl, present at the ceremony. When the priest had chanted one more incantation, each child pulled th

thers of the bird were tied. Then, holding the sticks in their hands, they sat on their heels in a row opposite the priest, who stood facing the east with a stick similarly adorned in his left hand. Next he moved to the south end of the row of men and chanted, and as he chanted he gradually raised his stick, while at the same time all the bearers, holding their sticks at arm's length, gradually raised them and their bodies si

repository of the property of a deceased chief, which contained, among other things, a little canoe with sail and paddles, "to serve as a ferry-boat for the spirit to enter in safety into the eternal abodes." Nevertheless in the same enclosure, which was fenced wi

nce the sacred grove in which their remains were buried was full of disembodied spirits; and when a man died a violent death his sou

or ever, wreaking its spite on the living, for all disembodied spirits were deemed malicious. Hence after a battle, if people could not obtain the body of a slain friend, they sought to procure at least some drops of his blood or shreds of his raiment, that by crooning over them the appropriate spell they might draw home the vagrant spirit to his place of rest. The burial-grounds were regarded with awe and fear, for sometimes a restless ghost would break bounds and spread

f their clothes; at the second, which is called Wai-otioti, they turn their backs on the land of the living and set their faces to the land of the dead. Arrived at the cape they pass outward over a long narrow ledge of rock and then leap down on a flat stone. There they see a mass of sea-weed floating on the water, its roots hidden in the depth, its upper branches clinging to a pohutukawa tree. When they perceive an opening in the sea-weed they dive and soon find themselves in the lower world. But before they reach the abode of spirits they must cross a river by a plank; the river is called Waiorotane or the River of the Water of Life; and sometimes the warden of the plank will not suffer the ghosts to pass the river, but drives them back with friendly violence and bids them return to their friends on earth. Such souls come back to the bright world of light and life, and tell their friends what they have seen and heard on the journey to that bourne from wh

iest at the grave. He asked them, "Whence came ye?" They answered, "From the seeking, from the searching." He asked them again, "Ah! what have you got? ah! what have you gained?" Then the men threw the bird and the reeds on the ground. Next the priest chose a stalk of grass or fern and put it near the

y descend, each being darker and worse than the one above it, till in the lowest of all complete darkness reigns. There the souls, deprived alike of light and food, wasted away and ultimately ceased to exist; or according to another account they assumed the shape of worms and in that gui

d father in the nether regions two roots of sweet potatoes of a most prodigious size. These the ghost told her to take back to earth and plant for the benefit of his grandchild. So she hurried away with them and arriving at the foot of the North Cape had begun to clamber up the face of the cliff, when two infant spirits overtook her and attempted to drag her back to dead land by tugging at her cloak. To divert their attentio

Any commands conveyed in this manner from the other world are, or used to be, implicitly obeyed and might decide the course to be pursued in the most important affairs of life.[72] In some tribes, especially among the natives of Wangunui, it used to be customary to keep in the houses small carved images of wood, each of them dedicated to an ancestor of the family, who was believed occasionally to enter into the image in order to hold converse with his living descendants.[73] But even without the intervention of such images the

n Maori mythology and cosmogony.[78] The gods whom the Maoris feared, we are told, were the spirits of the dead, who were believed to be constantly watching over the living with jealous eyes, lest they should neglect any part of the law relating to persons or things subject to the sacred restriction called taboo (tapu). These spirits, however, confined their care almost exclusively to persons among the living with whom they were connected by ties of relationship, so that every tribe and every family had its own worshipful ancestral spirit or god, whom members of the tribe or family invoked with appropriate prayers or spells (karakias). Ancestral spirits who lived in the flesh before the Maoris emigrated to New Zealand were invoked by all the tribes in New Zealand without distinction, so far as their names and memories survived in tradition. Thus the worship of these remote ancestors constituted what may be called the nat

r other of their nearest living kinsmen. In battle they hovered over the combatants and inspired courage into the hearts of their own tribe. Hence when, on the eve of battle, any young man showed signs of the white feather, recourse was immediately had to the family priest, who repeated a charm, i

ibe did not trouble themselves to follow him among a hostile tribe and hostile spirits, and the ancestral spirits of the tribe whom he served as a slave would not deign to give him a thought. Hence being forsaken of god and left to their own devices, slaves were relieved from many of the burdensome restrictions which the Maori gods laid upon

personifications of the various forces or elements of nature, such as the sky and the earth. But though fancy wove round them a glistering web of myth and fable, they were apparently believed to stand aloof in cold abstraction from human affairs and to take no interest in the present race of men. T

ion of the human soul.[85] But though "god" is the nearest English equivalent of the word atua, we must beware of assuming that the Maori idea of godhead coincided with ours. On this subject one of our best authorities tells us that the term "god" is really not applicable to the Atua Maori, the so-called gods of the Maoris. For these beings, he says, "were, with few exceptions, malignant demons

likewise Atua marau, as the toroa, albatross, the ruru, owl; and karu karu, the film which shades its eye from the light, was also an atua; male and female spirits presided over dreams, and were regarded as atuas, Ko nga atua moe moea o te poko, the gods of dreams; Tunui a rangi, a male, Pare kewa, a female deity, both were prayed to as gods; the atua kore and atua kiko kiko were inferior gods. The Atua ngarara or reptile gods were very abundant, and were supposed to be the cause of all diseases and death, being always ready to avail themselves of every opportunity of crawling down the throat during sleep, and thus preying upon the lives of unfortunate creatures. Atuas or spirits of the deceased were thought to be able to revisit the earth and reveal to their friends the cause of their sickness. Everything that was evil or noxious was supposed especially to belong to the gods; thus a species of euphorbium, whose milk or juice is highly poisonous, is called wai u atua, the milk of the gods."[87] "In fact, in the accounts which t

rly years of the nineteenth century showed his watch to some Maoris, the ticking struck them with such astonishment that they deemed it nothing less than the voice of a god; and the watch itself, being looked upon as a deity (atua) in

o among t

system of taboo, the most remarkable and characteristic institution in the life of the Maoris and of the Polynesians in general. I shall first give some account of the taboo or tapu, as the M

poured on them from a distance by his attendant. This state of consecration or defilement, as we might be tempted rather to call it, was incurred by any person who had touched either a young child or a corpse or had assisted at a funeral. The taboo contracted by association with the dead was the strictest and most virulent of all. It extended not only to the persons who had handled the corpse or paid the last offices of respect to the departed; it applied to the place where the body was buried or the bones deposited. So sacred, indeed, was deemed the spot where a chief had died that in the old days everything upon it was destroyed by fire. Hence in order to avoid the destruction of a house, which a death in it would have entailed, it was customary to remove a sick or dying man to a temporary shed just large enough to shelter him from the sun or screen him from the rain; for if the man died in it, the destruction of the wretched hovel was no great loss to the survivors.[95] A widow was tabooed and had to observe the aforesaid restrictions from the death of her husband until his bones had been scraped and deposited in their last resting-place; and the same rule applied to a widower.[96] These taboos were temporary and could be removed by a priest, who performed certain rites and repeated certain spells (karakias), and thereby relieved the tabooed person from the state of sanctity or consecration under which he had laboured. The performance of the ceremony put an end to the spiritual quarantine; the man ceased to be sacred, he became common (noa) once more, and could mingle freely with his fellows. One of the ceremonies of desecration, as we may call it, was to pass a consecrated piece of wood over the right shoulder of the tabooed person, then round his loins, and back again over the left shoulder, after which the stick was broken in two and buried, burned, or cast into the sea.[97] Again, a temporary taboo was laid on all persons who were engaged in planting sweet potatoes, or in sorting the seed, or in digging and preparing the ground; they might not leave the fields where they were at work nor unde

e was of m?na and sacredness of his tribe. That he should have been regarded in this light is not astonishing, for the Maoris believed he was something more than human, in that he was the shrine of an hereditary Atua, the guardian spirit of the tribe, and could therefore at any time communicate with the tribal gods.... Such a man was not only tapu in person but he made everything he touched so dangerously sacred as to be a source of terror to the tribe. To smoke his pipe, or drink from any vessel he had touched, was death speedy and certain at the hands of the gods, who avenge breaches of the tapu."[104] "The gods being no more than deceased chiefs, the arikis were regarded as living ones, and thus were not to be killed by inferio

heir own account. Hence noble boys and lads were under none of the irksome restrictions to which in their adult years they were afterwards bound to submit; they mixed freely with the profane vulgar and did not even disdain to carry fuel or provisions on their backs, a thing which no man of any standing could possibly do; at all events, if he did so demean himself, the food was thereby rendered taboo and could accordingly be used by nobody but himself. "If he went into the shed used as a kitchen (a thing, however, he would never think of doing except on some great emergency), all the pots, ovens, food, etc., would be at once rendered useless-none of the cooks or inferior people could make use of them, or partake of anything which had been cooked in them. He might certainly light a little fire in his own house, not for cooking, as that never by any chance could be done in his house, but for warmth; but that, or any

e been a terrible profanation of sacred things, and would have rendered the rash sacrilegious wretch, who had dared so to appropriate it, liable to the severest punishment. The severed hair was collected and buried or hung up on a tree,[110] probably to put it out of the way of common folk, who might have been struck dead by contact with the holy locks. But apparently the dangers incident to hair-cutting were by no means confined to chiefs, but extended to any one who was bold enough to submit his head to the barber's shears; for one of the early writers on the Maoris tells us that "he who has had his hair cut is in the immediate charge of the Atua; he is removed from the contact and society of his family and his tribe; he dare not touch his food himself; it is put into his mouth by another per

use and left it there.[114] Again, a Maori gentleman, visiting a missionary, knocked his head against a beam in the house, and his sacred blood was spilt. The natives present thereupon told the missionary that in former times his house would after such an accident have belonged to his noble visitor.[115] Even the cast garments of a chief had acquired, by contact with his holy body, so virulent a degree of sanctity that they would kill anybody else who might happen in ignorance to find and wear them. On a journey, when a chief found his blanket too heavy to carry, he has been known to throw it very considerately down a precipice where nobody would be likely to light on it, lest some future traveller should be struck dead by appropriating the sacred garment. Once a chief's lost tinder-box actually caused the death of several persons; for having found it and used it to light their pipes, they literally died of fright on learning the sacrilege which they had committed.[116] Such fatal effects consequent on the discovery of a breach of taboo were not uncommon among the Maoris. Fo

, became his and might be appropriated by nobody else under pain of violating the taboo which the chief had laid upon it. For example, when a chief desired to prevent a piece of ground from being cultivated by any one but himself, he often resorted to the expedient of calling it his back-bone; after that if any man dared

of drift timber, he could make it his own by tying something to it or giving it a chop with his axe; he thereby set his taboo on the log, and as a general rule the taboo would be respected. A

ts, declares that "it was undoubtedly the ordinance of a wise legislator."[123] But to say this is greatly to overrate the wisdom and foresight of primitive man in general and of the Polynesians in particular; it implies a fundamental misconception of the real nature and history of taboo. That curious institution was not the creation of a prudent and sagacious legislator, who devised this system of checks and restrictions for the purpose of curbing the passions of a savage race and inducing them to submit to the salutary restraints of law and morality. It wa

tant to injure an old friend and relation. On the other hand the most malignant forms of disease were attributed to the spirits of dead infants, who having never learned to love their living friends, would rend and devour the bowels of their nearest kin without compunction. With these ideas as to the origin of disease the Maoris naturally did not attempt to heal the sick through the curative properties of herbs and other drugs; their remedies consisted not in medicine but in exorcism: instead of a physician they sent for a priest, who by his spells and incantations undertook to drive the dangerous sprite from the body of the patient and to appease the ancestral spirit, whose wrath was believed to be the cause of all the mischief. If the deity proved recalcitrant and obstinately declined to accept this notice to quit, they did not hesitate to resort to the most threatening and outrageous language, sometimes telling him that they would kill and eat him, and at others that they would burn him to a cinder if he did not take himself off at once and allow the patient to recover.[124] Curiously en

Concl

in the community and thereby to foster economic progress, which cannot exist without some measure of peace and security for life and possessions. These were great gains, and so far as the faith in immortality helped to win them for the Maoris, it certainly ameliorated their condition and furthered the cause of civilisation among them. But on the other hand the belief in the essential malignancy of the spirits of the dead and in their great power to harm the living added a host of purely imaginary terrors to the real evils with which man's existence on earth is naturally and inevitably encompassed: it imposed a regular system of needless and vexatious restrictions on social intercourse and the simplest acts of

TNO

nography and Philology (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 4 sqq., 9 sq

0), pp. 154, 501; British Museum, Handbook to

ers, Second Edition (London, 1856), p. 212; J. Deniker, The Races of Man, p. 501. In Polynesia "the bow was not a serious weapon; it was found in some islands, e.g. in Tahiti and Tonga, but was principally used for killing rats or in shooting matches" (British Museum, Handbook to the Ethn

Percy Smith, Hawaiki, the Original Home of the Maori (Christchurch, etc., New Zealand, 1910), pp. 85 sqq.; A. C. Haddon, The Wanderings of Peop

Codrington, The Melanesian Languages (Oxford, 1885), pp. 10 sqq.; S. H. Ray, "Th

The Races of M

e, 1907), p. 528 (as to the relation of the Polynesian to the Melanesian language). As to the poverty of the Polynesian lang

ly may have belonged to Asia, for in the Malay region the grammar is more complex, and words are found like tasik = sea and langit = sky, while in the distant islands of New Zealand and Hawaii these have come down to tai and lai, as though the language be

see W. H. R. Rivers, The History of Melanesian Society (Cambridge, 1914), ii. 280, who, howev

oring Expedition, Ethnography and Phi

Second Edition (London, 1856), pp. 1 sqq.; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants, Second Edition (London, 1870), pp. 26, 27, 289 sqq.; John White, The Ancient History of the Maori, his Mythology and Traditions (London, 1887-1889), ii. 176 sqq.; Elsdon Best, "The Peopling of New Zealand," Man, xiv. (1914) pp. 73-76. The num

ions and Superstitions of

w Zealand (London, 1859), i. 57 sqq.; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 26; E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary (Wellington, N.Z., 1891), pp. 56 sqq., s.v. "Hawaiki"; A. C. Haddon, The Wanderings of Peoples (Cambridge, 1919), p. 36. Of these writers, Di

and skin exceeding soft." The writer rightly connects the latter people with the stock which we now call Melanesian. Compare also R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 13 sqq., who says (p. 13), "The Melanesian preceded the Polynesian.... The remains of this race are to be seen in every part of New Zealand, especially among the Nga-ti-ka-hunu, to which the derisive name of Pokerekahu-Black Kumara-is applied. The Maori traditions preserve both the names of the canoes which brought them to New Zealand, as well as of the chiefs who commanded them; several of these records make mention of their having found this black race in occupation of the country on their arrival." The blending of two distinct races, a light-brown and a dark race, among the Maoris is clearly recognised by E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 8-11. The dark race, he says (pp. 9 sq.), "has undoubtedly a different origin. Thi

opling of New Zealand," M

Moriori in New Zealand," M

en together by the fibrous roots of a creeper. They were built by preference on hills, the sides of which were scarped and terraced to assist the defence. Some of them were very extensive and are said to have contained from one to two thousand inhabitants. Many of them were immensely strong and practically impregnable in the absence of artillery. It is believed that the habit of fortifying their villages was characteristic of the older race whom the Maoris, on landing in New Zeal

Cook, Voyages (Lo

e found in New Zealand as well as in other parts o

ns and Superstitions of the

New Zealand (London, 1835), pp. 157 sqq.; E. Shortland, Traditions and Supe

Voyages, ii. 47 sq.; W. Y

nds by the Maoris in 1835," Journal of the Polynes

96; A. R. Wallace, Australasi

Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the Maori of New Zealan

titions of the New Zealanders, pp. 212 s

ges, i. 49 sq.; W. Yate, An A

Voyages, ii. 49; R. Tay

certain recognised laws of rhetoric, and their oratory was distinguished by a native eloquenc

ori," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. i

esian Comparative Dictionary

Best, op.

omparative Dictionary, p. 52, s.v.

onde et à la recherche de la Pérouse, Histoi

Zealand and its Aborigin

e Maori," Journal of the Polynesian Society

s see Elsdon Best, "Omens and Superstitious Beliefs of the Maori," Journal

olynesian Mythology (Lo

he Maori," Journal of the Polynesian Socie

he Maori," Journal of the Polynesian Socie

ed by the Maori of New Zealand," Journal of the Polyn

ted by the Maori of New Zealand," Journal of the Pol

" Journal of the Polynesian Society, v

.; E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders,

Maori," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vo

or, Te Ika A

33 sqq., s.v. "Maui"; Horatio Hale, United States Exploring Exp

the most baneful consequences. In the latter case, they consider the child as either doomed to immediate death, or that, if allowed to live, it will grow up with a most perverse and wicked disposition." Before or after sprinkling the child with water the priest bestowed on the infant its name. See W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand (London, 1835), pp. 82-84; A. S. Thomson, The Story of New Zealand (London, 1859), i. 118 sqq.; R. Tay

Polynesian Mythology

For another version of the myth, told with some minor variations, see S. Percy Smith, The Lore of the Whare-wānanga, Part I. (New Plymouth, N.Z., 1913)

opagation de la Foi, xv. (1843) p. 25; E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 62, 118; W. Brown, New Zealand and its Inhabitants, pp. 15 sqq.; G. F. Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand, i. 331; A. S. Thomson, The St

d'Urville, op

els in New Zealand, ii. 62 sqq.; G. F. Angas, Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand, i. 331; A. S. Thomson, The Story of New Zealand, i. 188; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 218 sq

i, xv. (1843) pp. 26 sq. The name Hahunga is doubtless connected with the verb hahu which means "to exhume the bones of dead person

'Urville, op. ci

g," a word no doubt derived from tahu, "to set on fire, kindle." See E.

gst the Maori tribes of New Zeala

nal of the Polynesian Society, vol. xii. no. 4 (December 1903), pp. 195-197. Compare W. Ya

ii. 542; G. F. Angas, op. cit. ii.

mont d'Urv

or, Te Ika A

rd Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Sc

it. p. 363. As to the meaning of mua, see E. Tregear, Ma

fe and Scenes in Australia

, Te Ika A Mau

or, Te Ika A

lynesian Comparative Dict

ach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 66 sq.; E. Tregear, "The Maoris of New Zealand," Journal of the Anthropological Institute, xix. (1890) pp. 118 sq.; id., Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, pp. 407 sq., 591, s.vv. "R

i. Compare E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 517, s.v. "Tiri." The ceremony described in the tex

gy," Report of the Third Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advance

118; E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Ze

ii. 67, 118; E. Shortland, Traditions and Sup

ions and Superstitions of

' Residence in New Zealand (London, 1823), p. 186: "The belief in the reappearance of the dead is universal among the New Zealanders: they fancy they hear their deceased relatives speaking to them when the wind is high; whenever they pass the place where a ma

he Maori," Journal of the Polynesian Socie

Best, op.

or, Te Ika A

ders, pp. 80, 81; id., Maori Religion and Mythology, pp. 10 sq.; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 108, "Maori gods are so mixed up with

ing, or war, without first uttering a karakia; he would not even take a journey without repeating a spell to secure his safety; still he could not be said to pray, for, properly speaking, they had no such thing as prayer. As in war, they armed themselves with the most formidable weapons they could procure, and laid their plans with the greatest skill they possessed, so to secure the fruition of their desires, they used their most powerful means to compel the gods to be obedient to their wishes, whether they sought for victory over their foes, fruitful crops, successful fishings, or huntings, they called in the aid of potent incantations; when they planted their kumara [sweet potatoes], they sought to compel the god who pres

lfth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the

ns and Superstitions of the

s of the New Zealanders, pp. 82 sq.; id., The

itute, liii. (1921) p. 2. Among the great primordial deities who were worshipped by all tribes of New Zealand may be mentioned Tane, Tu, Tangaroa, and Rongo. Of the four, Tane was the origin and tutelary deity of forests and birds: no tree might be felled and no bird caught till certain rites had been performed to placate him. Tu was the god of war. Tangaroa was the god of the ocean, the origin and tutelary deity of fish. Rongo was the god of peace, and presided over agriculture. See Elsdon B

nesian Comparative Dictiona

onde et à la recherche de la Pérouse, Histoi

ed by the Maori of New Zealand," Journal of the Polyn

, Te Ika A Mau

or, Te Ika A

ive of a Voyage to New Zeal

Monde et à la recherche de la Pérouse, Hist

ch, Travels in Ne

Account of New Ze

New Zealand, p. 84; R. Tay

nesian Comparative Dictiona

w Zealand, pp. 85 sq.; R. Tayl

ch, Travels in Ne

nt, "Notice sur la Nouvelle-Zélande," Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, xv. (1843) p. 23; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 166 sq.; Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 104 sqq. The taboo could be got rid of more simply by the ta

85; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 165 sq.; O

n Account of Ne

nd, by a Pakeha Mao

Southern Districts of

land, by a Pakeha

Zealanders, p. 104; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 149, 164, 212 sq.; E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary

xiv. no. 3 (September 1905), p. 130. Compare id., "The Tipua-Kura and other Manifestations

s regarded as one peculiarly favoured by the gods, and in such cases it is held that he can only be overcome by some act or default; such as a disregard or neglect of some religious or warlike observance, which has been shown by experience to be essential to success in war, but which our warrior, spoiled by a long career of good fortune, had come to regard as necessary to ordinary mortals only and of but little consequence to men of mana" (W. E. Gudgeon, op. cit. p. 62). "There were cases in which the mana of a man depended upon the facility with which he could communicate with the spirits of departed ancestors, that is, upon

emy which was most commonly swallowed by a victorious chief who desired to increase his spiritual power. See J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour d

aland, by a Pake

aland, by a Pake

f New Zealand, p. 87; R. Ta

Zealand, p. 87; E. Dieffenbach,

ndon, 1823), pp. 283 sq. Compare J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde e

lfth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the A

or, Te Ika A

in New Zealand, ii. 101; R. Ta

or, Te Ika A

r, Te Ika A Ma

land and its Aborigines

land, by a Pakeha

e New Zealanders, p. 111; Old New Zealand, by a Pakeha

or, Te Ika A

aland, by a Pake

aland, by a Pake

and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand, i. 330, "Doubtless this law is the result of some wise regulation for the protection of property and individuals, and it has in many things a beneficial influence amongst a people who have no written or regularly established code of laws of their own." To the same effect another authority on the Maoris observes: "The most politic and useful of all the superstitious institutions of the Maori people is that which involves the rites of tapu. It has always seemed to me that this institution, w

pp. 12-15; Reise der Oesterreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde, Anthropologischer Theil, Dritte Abtheilung, Ethnographie, bearbeitet von Dr. Fr. Müller (Vienna, 1868), pp. 59 sq. Even more dangerous than the spirits of dead infants were supposed to be the spirits of human germs, which the Maoris imagined to exist in the menstrual fluid. See E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 115, 292; id., Maori Religion and Mythology, pp. 107

s, 1832-1833), ii. 517; W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, pp. 141 sq.; E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii. 117; Elsdon Best, "Maori Medical Lore," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. xii

Life and Scenes in Austral

n Account of New