The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3)
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Title: The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3)
Author: James George Frazer
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THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY
VOL. II
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA . MADRAS
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO
DALLAS . SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
THE
BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY
AND THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD
BY
SIR JAMES GEORGE FRAZER, F.R.S., F.B.A.
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
HON. D.C.L., OXFORD; HON. LITT.D., CAMBRIDGE AND DURHAM;
HON. LL.D., GLASGOW; DOCTOR HONORIS CAUSA OF THE UNIVERSITIES OF
PARIS AND STRASBOURG
VOL. II
THE BELIEF AMONG THE POLYNESIANS
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1922
COPYRIGHT
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
PREFACE
The first volume of this work, which comprised the Gifford Lectures
given by me at St. Andrews in the years 1911 and 1912, dealt with the
belief in immortality and the worship of the dead, as these are found
among the aborigines of Australia, the Torres Straits Islands, New
Guinea, and Melanesia. In the present volume I take up the subject at
the point at which I broke off, and describe the corresponding belief
and worship among the Polynesians, a people related to their neighbours
the Melanesians by language, if not by blood. The first chapter formed
the theme of two lectures delivered at the Royal Institution in 1916;
the other chapters have been written for lectures at Trinity College,
Cambridge, in 1921 and 1922. But in the book the lecture form has been
discarded, and the treatment of the subject is somewhat fuller than
comports with the limits imposed by oral delivery.
Should circumstances allow me to continue the work, I propose in the
next volume to treat of the belief in immortality and the worship of the
dead among the Micronesians and Indonesians.
J. G. FRAZER.
NO. 1 BRICK COURT, TEMPLE,
LONDON, _19th July 1922_.
CONTENTS
PAGES
PREFACE v
TABLE OF CONTENTS vii-ix
CHAP.
I. THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE MAORIS 1-51
Sec. 1. The Polynesians 1-5
Sec. 2. The Maoris of New Zealand 5-10
Sec. 3. The Beliefs of the Maoris concerning the Souls of
the Living 10-19
Sec. 4. The Beliefs of the Maoris concerning the Souls of
the Dead 19-37
Sec. 5. Taboo among the Maoris 37-50
Sec. 6. Conclusion 51
II. THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE TONGANS 52-147
Sec. 1. The Tonga or Friendly Islands 52-57
Sec. 2. The Tonga Islanders, their Character, Mode of
Life, and Government 57-63
Sec. 3. The Tongan Religion: its General Principles 64-68
Sec. 4. The Primary or Non-human Gods 68-73
Sec. 5. The Temples of the Gods 73-77
Sec. 6. Priests and their Inspiration 77-79
Sec. 7. The Worship of the Gods, Prayers, and Sacrifices 79-84
Sec. 8. The Doctrine of the Soul and its Destiny
after Death 84-91
Sec. 9. The Souls of the Dead as Gods 91-98
Sec. 10. Temples and Tombs: Megalithic Monuments 99-132
Sec. 11. Rites of Burial and Mourning 132-146
Sec. 12. The Ethical Influence of Tongan Religion 146-147
III. THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE SAMOANS 148-218
Sec. 1. The Samoan Islands 148-156
Sec. 2. The Samoan Islanders, their character 156-163
Sec. 3. Houses, Agriculture, and Industries 163-169
Sec. 4. Rights of Property 169-171
Sec. 5. Government, Social Ranks, Respect for Chiefs 171-181
Sec. 6. Religion: Gods of Families, Villages,
and Districts 181-192
Sec. 7. Priests and Temples 192-200
Sec. 8. Origin of the Samoan Gods of Families, Villages,
and Districts: Relation to Totemism 200-202
Sec. 9. The High Gods of Samoa 202-205
Sec. 10. The Samoan Belief concerning the Human
Soul: Funeral Customs 205-213
Sec. 11. The Fate of the Human Soul after Death 213-218
IV. THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE HERVEY ISLANDERS 219-245
Sec. 1. The Hervey or Cook Islands 219-220
Sec. 2. The Islanders and their Mode of Life 220-223
Sec. 3. Social Life: the Sacred Kings 223-225
Sec. 4. Religion, the Gods, Traces of Totemism 225-229
Sec. 5. The Doctrine of the Human Soul 229-231
Sec. 6. Death and Funeral Rites 231-237
Sec. 7. The Fate of the Human Soul after Death 238-245
V. THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE SOCIETY ISLANDERS 246-327
Sec. 1. The Society Islands 246-248
Sec. 2. The Islanders and their Mode of Life 248-256
Sec. 3. The Religion of the Society Islanders 256-278
Sec. 4. The Temples and Images of the Gods 278-291
Sec. 5. The Sacrifices, Priests, and Sacred Recorders 291-296
Sec. 6. The Doctrine of the Human Soul 297-299
Sec. 7. Disease, Death, and Mourning 299-308
Sec. 8. The Disposal of the Dead 308-313
Sec. 9. The Fate of the Soul after Death 313-321
Sec. 10. The Worship of the Dead 322-327
VI. THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE MARQUESANS 328-374
Sec. 1. The Marquesas Islands 328-331
Sec. 2. Physical Appearance of the Natives 331-333
Sec. 3. Food, Weapons, Tools, Houses, Canoes, Fishing 333-337
Sec. 4. Polyandry, Adoption, Exchange of Names 337-339
Sec. 5. Amusements, Dancing-places, Banqueting-halls 339-344
Sec. 6. Social Ranks, Taboo 344-347
Sec. 7. Religion and Mythology 348-352
Sec. 8. The Soul, Death, and Funeral Customs 352-363
Sec. 9. Fate of the Soul after Death 363-374
VII. THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE HAWAIIANS 375-431
Sec. 1. The Sandwich or Hawaiian Islands 375-377
Sec. 2. The Natives and their Mode of Life 377-380
Sec. 3. Houses, Mechanical Arts 380-383
Sec. 4. Government, Social Ranks, Taboo 383-390
Sec. 5. Religion, the Gods 390-404
Sec. 6. Priests, Sorcerers, Diviners 404-406
Sec. 7. Temples, Images, Human Sacrifices 406-414
Sec. 8. Festivals 414-416
Sec. 9. Death and Funeral Rites 417-427
Sec. 10. Fate of the Soul after Death 427-431
INDEX 433-447
CHAPTER I
THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE MAORIS
Sec. 1. _The Polynesians_
The Polynesians are the tall brown race of men who inhabit the widely
scattered islands of the Pacific, from Hawaii on the north to New
Zealand on the south, and from Tonga on the west to Easter Island on the
east.[1] Down to the eighteenth century they remained practically
unknown to Europe; the first navigator to bring back comparatively full
and accurate information concerning them was our great English explorer,
Captain James Cook. Thus at the date of their discovery the natives were
quite unaffected by European influence: of our civilisation they knew
nothing: 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
complete independence of those material, intellectual, and moral forces
which have moulded the character of modern European nations. The
lateness of their discovery may also be reckoned a fortunate
circumstance for us as well as for them, since it fell at a time when
scientific curiosity was fully awakened among us, and when scientific
methods were sufficiently understood to allow us to study with profit a
state of society which differed so widely from our own, and which in an
earlier and less enlightened age might have been contemplated only with
aversion and disgust.
[1] Horatio Hale, _The United States Exploring Expedition,
Ethnography and Philology_ (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 4 _sqq_.,
9 _sqq._; J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_ (London, 1900), pp. 500
_sqq._
[2] J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_ (London, 1900), pp. 154, 501;
_British Museum, Handbook to the Ethnographical Collections_
(1910), p. 147.
[3] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_ (London, 1809), v. 416; W.
Mariner, _Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands_, Second
Edition (London, 1818), i. 67; W. Ellis, _Polynesian
Researches_, Second Edition (London, 1832-1836), i. 220; E.
Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders_,
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 Ethnographical Collections_,
p. 153). As to the limited use of bows and arrows in Polynesia,
see further E. Tregear, "The Polynesian Bow," _Journal of the
Polynesian Society_, vol. i. no. 1 (April 1892), pp. 56-59; W.
H. R. Rivers, _The History of Melanesian Society_ (Cambridge,
1914), ii. 446 _sqq._
The question of the origin of the Polynesian race is still unsettled,
but the balance both of evidence and of probability seems to incline in
favour of the view that the people are descended from one of the yellow
Mongoloid races of South-Eastern Asia, who gradually spread eastward
over the Indian Archipelago and intermingling to some extent with the
black aboriginal inhabitants of the islands formed the lighter-tinted
brown race which we call the Polynesian.[4] A strong 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 New Guinea and Australia.
The brown Malays, with the kindred Indonesians and a small admixture of
negritoes, inhabit the islands westward from New Guinea to the Malay
Peninsula.[6] Of the two kindred languages, the Polynesian and the
Melanesian, the older in point of structure appears unquestionably to be
the Melanesian; for it is richer both in sounds and in grammatical forms
than the Polynesian, which may accordingly be regarded as its later and
simplified descendant.[7]
[4] Compare (Sir) E. B. Tylor, _Anthropology_ (London, 1881), p.
102; R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesian Languages_ (Oxford,
1885), pp. 33 _sqq._; S. Percy Smith, _Hawaiki, the Original
Home of the Maori_ (Christchurch, etc., New Zealand, 1910), pp.
85 _sqq._; A. C. Haddon, _The Wanderings of Peoples_ (Cambridge,
1919), pp. 34 _sqq._; A. H. Keane, _Man Past and Present_,
revised by A. Hingston-Quiggin and A. C. Haddon (Cambridge,
1920), p. 552.
[5] On the affinity of the Polynesian, Melanesian, and Malay
languages, see R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesian Languages_
(Oxford, 1885), pp. 10 _sqq._; S. H. Ray, "The Polynesian
Language in Melanesia," _Anthropos_, xiv.-xv. (1919-1920), pp.
46 _sqq._
[6] J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_, pp. 482 _sqq._
[7] _Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to
Torres Straits_, vol. iii. _Linguistics_, by Sydney H. Ray
(Cambridge, 1907), p. 528 (as to the relation of the Polynesian
to the Melanesian language). As to the poverty of the Polynesian
language in sounds and grammatical forms by comparison with the
Melanesian, see R. H. Codrington, _The Melanesian Languages_, p.
11.
But whereas the three peoples, the Polynesians, the Melanesians, and the
Malays speak languages belonging to the same family, their physical
types are so different that it seems impossible to look on the brown
straight-haired Polynesians and Malays as pure descendants of the
swarthy frizzly-haired Melanesians. Accordingly in the present state of
our knowledge, or rather ignorance, the most reasonable hypothesis would
appear to be that the Melanesians, who occupy a central position in the
great ocean, between the Polynesians 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 corrupt or degenerate
forms.[8] Yet a serious difficulty meets us on this hypothesis. For
both the Polynesians and the Malays, as we know them, stand at a
decidedly higher level of culture, socially and intellectually, than the
Melanesians, and it is hard to understand why with this advantage they
should have fallen into a position of linguistic subordination to them,
for as a rule it is the higher race which imposes its language on its
inferiors, not the lower race which succeeds in foisting its speech on
its superiors.
[8] This seems to be the hypothesis favoured by Dr. R. H.
Codrington, _The Melanesian Languages_, pp. 33 _sqq._ Compare J.
Deniker, _The Races of Man_, p. 505. On the other hand Sir E. B.
Tylor says (_Anthropology_, pp. 163 _sq._), "The parent language
of this family 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 became shrunk and formless as the
race migrated further from home, and sank into the barbaric life
of ocean islanders." Dr. W. H. R. Rivers suggests that the
Polynesian language "arose out of a pidgin Indonesian" (_The
History of Melanesian Society_, ii. 584).
But these are intricate questions which await future investigation. I
cannot enter into them now, but must confine myself to my immediate
subject, the beliefs of the Polynesians concerning the human soul and
the life after death.
In spite of their diffusion over a multitude of islands separated from
each other by hundreds and even thousands of miles of ocean, the
Polynesians are on the whole a remarkably homogeneous race in physical
type, language, and forms of society and religion. The differences of
language between them are inconsiderable, amounting to little more than
some well-marked dialectical variations: all dwell in settled homes and
subsist partly by fishing partly by the fruits of the earth, tilling the
soil and gathering coconuts and bread-fruit from the trees:[9] all are
bold and 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 somewhat meagre, inexact in detail, and liable to many
exceptions. Accordingly I shall not attempt it, but shall describe the
creed of each group of islanders separately. As the beliefs of the
various islanders on this momentous topic are characterised by a general
similarity, the method I have adopted will no doubt involve a certain
sameness and repetition, but for the serious student of comparative
religion I hope that these disadvantages may be more than outweighed by
the greater accuracy and fulness of detail which this mode of treating
the subject renders possible.
[9] J. Deniker, _The Races of Man_, p. 501. On the apparent
homogeneity of the Polynesian race see W. H. R. Rivers, _The
History of Melanesian Society_ (Cambridge, 1914), ii. 280, who,
however, argues (ii. 280 _sqq._) that the race has been formed
by the fusion of two distinct peoples.
The principal groups of islands included in Polynesia are New Zealand,
the Friendly or Tonga Islands, the Samoan or Navigators Islands, the
Hervey or Cook Islands, the Society Islands, including Tahiti, the
Marquesas Islands, and Hawaii or the Sandwich Islands.[10] All of them,
except New Zealand, are within the tropics; and all of them, except
Hawaii, lie to the south of the equator. I shall deal with them in the
order I have mentioned, beginning with New Zealand.
[10] Horatio Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition,
Ethnography and Philology_ (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 4 _sqq._
Sec. 2. _The Maoris of New Zealand_
The Maoris of New Zealand are not aborigines of the islands which they
inhabit: they possess long and apparently in the main trustworthy
traditions of their migration to New Zealand many generations ago. The
circumstances which led to the migration, the names of the canoes in
which it was accomplished, the names and genealogies of the chiefs who
conducted it, are all recorded, having been handed on by word of mouth
from generation to generation, till they were finally written down from
the lips 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.[12] Though Hawaii is more than twice as far as
Savaii from New Zealand, being separated from it by almost the whole
breadth of the tropics and a great stretch of ocean besides, some good
authorities have inclined to regard it as the original home of the
Maoris, but the balance of opinion appears now to preponderate in favour
of the view that Savaii was the centre from which the Polynesians
dispersed all over the Pacific.[13] However, the question is one that
hardly admits of a positive answer.
[11] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_ (London, 1843),
ii. 85 _sqq._; Horatio Hale, _United States Exploring
Expedition, Ethnography and Philology_ (Philadelphia, 1846), pp.
146 _sqq._; Sir George Grey, _Polynesian Mythology_ (London,
1855), pp. 123 _sqq._, 136 _sqq._, 162 _sqq._, 202 _sqq._; E.
Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders_,
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 number of
generations which have elapsed since the migration to New
Zealand is variously estimated. Writing about the middle of the
nineteenth century Shortland reckoned the number at about
eighteen; Mr. Elsdon Best, writing in 1914, variously calculated
it at about twenty-eight or twenty-nine (on p. 73) and from
eighteen to twenty-eight (on p. 74).
[12] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, p. 33.
[13] H. Hale, _Ethnography and Philology of the U.S. Exploring
Expedition_, pp. 119 _sq._; E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New
Zealand_ (London, 1843), ii. 85 _sqq._; E. Shortland,
_Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders_, pp. 33
_sqq._; A. S. Thomson, _The Story of New 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, Dieffenbach, Shortland, and Taylor decide in favour of
Hawaii; Thomson, Hale, and Haddon prefer Savaii; Tregear seems
to leave the question open, pointing out that "the inhabitants
of those islands themselves believe in another Hawaiki, neither
in Samoa nor Hawaii."
The Maoris are not a pure-blooded Polynesian race. Among them even at
the present day two distinct racial types may be distinguished, one of
them the comparatively fair Polynesian type with straight nose and good
features, the other the swarthy, thick-lipped, flat-nosed,
frizzly-haired Melanesian type. They have a tradition that on their
arrival in New Zealand they found the country in the possession of a
dark-skinned folk of repulsive appearance, tall, spare, and
spindle-shanked, with flat faces, overhanging brows, and noses of which
little but the upturned nostrils could in some cases be discerned. These
savages wore little clothing and built no good houses, nothing but rude
shelters against the inclemency of the weather. They were ignorant and
treacherous, 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 descendants
of the crews of three fishing canoes which had been driven to sea from
their own land in past times, and that their original home was a much
warmer country than New Zealand. All these various indications may
perhaps be reconciled by supposing that the dark predecessors of the
Maoris in New Zealand were a Melanesian people, who had accidentally
drifted from Fiji, the inhabitants of which have long been in contact
with their Polynesian neighbours on the east, the Tongans.[14] They
received from the Maoris the name of Maruiwi,[15] and were perhaps of
the same stock as the Moriori of the Chatham Islands; for two skulls of
the Moriori type have been found in an old deposit at Wanganui, near the
south end of the North Island of New Zealand.[16]
[14] Elsdon Best, "The Peopling of New Zealand," _Man_, xiv.
(1914) pp. 73-76. The Melanesian strain in the Maoris was
recognised by previous writers. See J. S. Polack, _Manners and
Customs of the New Zealanders_ (London, 1840), i. 6, "The nation
consists of two aboriginal and distinct races, differing, at an
earlier period, as much from each other as both are similarly
removed in similitude from Europeans. A series of intermarriages
for centuries has not even yet obliterated the marked difference
that originally stamped the descendant of the now amalgamated
races. The first may be known by a dark-brown complexion, well
formed and prominent features, erect muscular proportions, and
lank hair, with a boldness in the gait of a warrior, wholly
differing from that of the second and inferior race, who have a
complexion brown-black, hair inclining to the wool, like the
Eastern African, stature short, 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. This is proved by their less regularly shaped
cranium, which is rather more compressed from the sides, by
their full and large features, prominent cheek-bones, full lips,
small ears, curly and coarse, although not woolly, hair, a much
deeper colour of the skin, and a short and rather
ill-proportioned figure. This race, which is mixed in insensible
gradations with the former, is far less numerous; it does not
predominate in any one part of the island, nor does it occupy
any particular station in a tribe, and there is no difference
made between the two races amongst themselves; but I must
observe that I never met any man of consequence belonging to
this race, and that, although free men, they occupy the lower
grades; from this we may perhaps infer the relation in which
they stood to the earliest native immigrants into the country,
although their traditions and legends are silent on the
subject."
[15] Elsdon Best, "The Peopling of New Zealand," _Man_, xiv.
(1914) pp. 73 _sq._
[16] (Sir) Arthur Keith, "Moriori in New Zealand," _Man_, xiii.
(1913) pp. 171 _sq._
At the time of their discovery the Maoris had attained to a fair level
of barbaric culture. They lived in comfortable houses ornamented with
carved work and with scrolls painted in red and white on the posts and
beams. Their villages were fortified with earthworks, palisades, and
trenches, and surrounded by large gardens planted with sweet potatoes,
taro, and melons.[17] "They excel in tillage," says Captain Cook, as
might naturally be expected, where the person that sows is to eat the
produce, and where there is so little besides that can be eaten: when we
first came to Tegadoo, a district between Poverty Bay and East Cape,
their crops were just covered, and not yet begun to sprout; the mould
was as smooth as in a garden, and every root had its small hillock,
ranged in a regular quincunx, by lines, which with the pegs were still
remaining in the field.[18] They understood the arts of irrigating their
gardens[19] and of manuring them so as to render the soil light and
porous and therefore better suited for the growth of 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 opportunity to shine, for the
simple reason that in their country there were no beasts to hunt except
rats;[24] even birds they could not shoot, because they had no bows and
arrows to shoot them with,[25] but they made some amends by catching
them in ingeniously constructed snares.[26] They caught fish both with
nets, some of which were of enormous size, and with hooks made of bone
or shell.[27] They displayed great skill and infinite patience in
fashioning, sharpening, and polishing their stone implements and
weapons.[28] In council they were orators, and in the battlefield
warriors whose courage has merited the respect, and whose military skill
has won the admiration of the British troops opposed to them.[29] In
short, the Maoris were and are one of the most highly gifted among the
many uncivilised peoples which the English race, in its expansion over
the world, has met and subdued. It is therefore of peculiar interest to
learn what conceptions they had formed of man's spiritual nature and his
relations to the higher powers.
[17] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the Maoris_,
p. 202. The elaborate system of fortification employed by the
Maoris, of which the remains may be seen by thousands, seems to
have no exact parallel in Polynesia. See Elsdon Best, "The
Peopling of New Zealand," _Man_, xiv. (1914) p. 75. These native
forts or _pas_, as they were called, had often a double or even
quadruple line of fence, the innermost formed by great poles
twenty or thirty feet high, which were tightly woven 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 Zealand, found in occupation
of the country. See W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_
(London, 1835), pp. 122 _sqq._; G. F. Angas, _Savage Life and
Scenes in Australia and New Zealand_ (London, 1847), i. 332
_sq._; Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the
Maoris of New Zealand," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_,
vol. xii. no. 4 (December 1903), pp. 204 _sqq._; W. H. Skinner,
"The Ancient Fortified _Pa_," _Journal of the Polynesian
Society_, vol. xx. no. 78 (June 1911), pp. 71-77.
[18] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_ (London, 1809), ii. 50.
[19] The ruins of native irrigation works are to be found in New
Zealand as well as in other parts of Polynesia (J. Deniker, _The
Races of Man_, p. 501).
[20] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, pp. 202 _sq._
[21] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, ii. 30 _sq._, 40 _sq._; W.
Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_ (London, 1835), pp. 157
_sqq._; E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, pp. 204 _sqq._; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 5.
[22] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, ii. 47 _sq._; W. Yate, _op.
cit._ pp. 161 _sqq._
[23] A. Shand, "The Occupation of the Chatham Islands by the
Maoris in 1835," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol. i.
no. 2 (July 1892), pp. 83 _sqq._
[24] R. Taylor, _op. cit._ p. 496; A. R. Wallace, _Australasia_
(London, 1913), pp. 442 _sq._
[25] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, p. 212; Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as
conducted by the Maori of New Zealand," _Journal of the
Polynesian Society_, vol. xi. no. 4 (December 1902), p. 240.
[26] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, pp. 212 _sqq._; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 442
_sq._
[27] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, i. 49 _sq._; W. Yate, _An
Account of New Zealand_, p. 160.
[28] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, ii. 49; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A
Maui_, p. 4.
[29] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 4. The Maoris delivered set
speeches composed according to certain recognised laws of
rhetoric, and their oratory was distinguished by a native
eloquence and grace. See E. Shortland, _Traditions and
Superstitions of the New Zealanders_, pp. 186 _sqq._
Sec. 3. _The Beliefs of the Maoris concerning the Souls of the Living_
Like most other peoples, whether savage or civilised, the Maoris
explained the mystery of life in man by the presence of an invisible
spirit or soul, which animates his body during life and quits it at
death to survive the separation for a longer or shorter time either in
this world or another. But like many others who have sought to fathom
this profound subject, the Maoris would seem to have experienced some
difficulty in ascertaining the precise nature of the human soul. When
the natural man, on the strength of his native faculties, essays to
explore these dark abysses and to put his vague thoughts into words, he
commonly compares his soul either to his breath or to his shadow and
his reflection, and not content with a simple comparison he is led, by a
natural confusion of thought, to identify more or less 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 Dumont d'Urville of the Maori form of
salutation by rubbing noses together. The French traveller was told that
the real intention of this salute was to mingle the breath and thereby
the souls of the persons who gave each other this token of friendship.
But as his informant was not a Maori but a certain Mr. Kendall, the
truth of the explanation remains doubtful, though the Frenchman believed
that he obtained confirmation of it from his own observation and the
testimony of a native.[34] On the other hand the comparison of the soul
to a shadow comes out in the answer given by a Maori to an Englishman
who had asked him why his people did not prevent their souls from
passing away to the nether world. The Maori replied by pointing to the
Englishman's shadow on the wall and asking him whether he could catch
it.[35]
[30] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," _Journal of
the Polynesian Society_, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), pp. 177
_sqq._, 189 _sqq._
[31] E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, pp.
591 _sq._, _s.v._ "wairua."
[32] Elsdon Best, _op. cit._ p. 189.
[33] E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p.
52, _s.v._ "hau"; Elsdon Best, _op. cit._ p. 190.
[34] J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la
recherche de la Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833),
ii. 558 _sq._
[35] William Brown, _New Zealand and its Aborigines_ (London,
1845), p. 81.
Thus far the Maori conception of the soul does not perhaps differ very
materially from the popular notion of it current among ourselves. But
we come now to a marked difference between the Maori idea of the soul
and our own. For whereas the European commonly believes his soul to be
fixed during life immovably in his body, and only to depart from it once
for all at death, the soul of the Maori is under no such narrow
restrictions, but is free to quit its bodily mansion at pleasure and to
return to it without prejudice to the life and health of its owner. For
example, the Maori explains a dream by supposing that the soul of the
sleeper has left his body behind and rambled away to places more or 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 significance, and the
Maoris had framed a fanciful system for interpreting them. Sometimes, as
with ourselves, the interpretation went by contraries. For example, if a
man dreamed that he saw a sick relative at the point of death, it was a
sign that the patient would soon recover; but if, on the contrary, the
sufferer appeared in perfect health, it was an omen of his approaching
end. When a priest was in doubt as to the intentions of the higher
powers, he usually waited for his god to reveal his will in a dream, and
accepted the vagaries of his slumbering fancy as an infallible
intimation of the divine pleasure. Spells were commonly recited in order
to annul the effect of ill-omened dreams.[37]
[36] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," _Journal of
the Polynesian Society_, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), pp. 177
_sq._
[37] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 333-335. As to omens
derived from dreams see Elsdon Best, "Omens and Superstitious
Beliefs of the Maori," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol.
vii. no. 27 (September 1898), pp. 124 _sqq._
But the departure of the soul from the body in life was not always
voluntary; it might take place under the compulsion of a hostile
sorcerer or magician. In a Maori legend called _The curse of Manaia_ we
read that "the priests next dug a long pit, termed the pit of wrath,
into which by their enchantments they 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, they
scraped the earth into the pit again to cover them up, and beat down the
earth with their hands, and crossed the pit with enchanted cloths, and
wove baskets of flax-leaves to hold the spirits of the foes which they
had thus destroyed, and each of these acts they accompanied with the
proper spells."[38]
[38] Sir George Grey, _Polynesian Mythology_ (London, 1855), pp.
168 _sq._
This mode of undoing an enemy by extracting and killing his soul was not
with the Maoris a mere legendary fiction; it was practised in real life
by their wizards. For we are told that when a priest desired 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 incantation which compelled
the soul of the doomed man to swarm down the cord into the pit,
whereupon another potent spell chanted by the magician speedily put an
end to the poor soul for good and all.[39]
[39] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," _Journal of
the Polynesian Society_, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), p. 187.
It seems obvious that spells of this sort may be used with great
advantage in war, for if you can only contrive to kill the souls of your
foes, their mere bodies will probably give you little or no trouble. Nor
did this practical application of the magic art escape the sagacity of
the Maoris. When they marched to attack an enemy's stronghold, it was an
ancient custom to halt and kindle a fire, over which the priest recited
certain spells to cause the souls of his adversaries to be drawn into
the fire and there to perish miserably in the flames. In theory the idea
was admirable, but unfortunately it did not always work out in
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,
might dash in pieces the arms of the enemy and cause their souls to
perish. Thus by his ghostly skill would he snatch victory from defeat,
and humble the pride of the insolent foe in the very moment of his
imaginary triumph.[41] One way in which he effected his purpose was to
take a bag or basket containing some sacred food, hold it to the fire,
and then opening the bag point the mouth of it in the direction of the
enemy. The simple recitation of a spell then sufficed to draw the souls
of the adversaries into the bag, after which nothing was easier for him
than to destroy them utterly by means of the appropriate
incantation.[42]
[40] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," _Journal of
the Polynesian Society_, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), p. 181.
[41] Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the
Maori of New Zealand," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol.
xi. no. 3 (September 1902), p. 141.
[42] Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the
Maori of New Zealand," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol.
xii. no. 2 (June 1903), p. 72.
But valuable as are these applications of magic to practical life, the
art, like every good thing, is liable to abuse; and even where it is
employed with the best intentions, the forces which it controls are so
powerful that in spite of all precautions an accident will sometimes
happen. For example, in sickness the patient often had recourse to a
priest, who would lead him down to the nearest water, whether a pool or
a stream, and there perform the magical rites necessary for the relief
of his particular malady. While the wizard was engaged in this
beneficent task, all the people in the village kept strictly indoors,
lest their souls should wander forth to the water-side and there
colliding, if I may be allowed the expression, with the mystic forces
of the priest's spells be damaged or even annihilated by the
collision.[43] In such a case the fatal consequences were the 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 they should give these wicked folk a handle
against them.[44] Another mode in which a Maori wizard could obtain
power over a man's soul was by working magic on the footprints of his
intended victim. The thing was done in this way. Suppose you are walking
and leave your footprints behind you on the ground. I come behind you,
take up the earth from your footprints, and deposit it on the sacred
_whata puaroa_, that is, a post or pillar set up in the holy place of a
village and charged in a mysterious manner with the vitality both of the
people and of the land. Having laid the earth from your footprints on
the sacred post, I next perform a ceremony of consecration over it, and
then bury it with a seed of sweet potato in the ground. After that you
are doomed. You may consider yourself for all practical purposes not
only dead but buried, like the earth from your footprints.[45]
[43] Elsdon Best, "Maori Medical Lore," _Journal of the
Polynesian Society_, vol. xiii. no. 4 (December 1904), p. 225.
[44] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_ (London, 1843),
ii. 58 _sq._; E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the
New Zealanders_, pp. 116 _sq._; _id._, _Maori Religion and
Mythology_ (London, 1882), p. 31.
[45] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," _Journal of
the Polynesian Society_, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), pp. 194
_sq._, 196.
From some of the foregoing facts it seems to follow that the souls of
the Maoris are not, so to say, constitutionally immortal, but that they
are of a brittle and perishable nature, and that in particular they are
liable to be cut short in their career and totally exterminated by the
insidious 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 shears of some witch or wizard. Hence after every death it
was customary to hold an inquest in order to discover the wretch who had
brought about the catastrophe by his enchantments; a sage presided at
the solemn enquiry, and under his direction the culprit was detected,
hunted down, and killed.[46]
[46] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 51.
The Maoris tell a story to explain how death first came into the world,
or at least how men were prevented from enjoying the boon of
immortality. The story runs as follows.
The great mythical hero of Polynesia is Maui, a demigod or man of
marvellous powers, who lived in the early ages of the world, and whose
mighty deeds are the theme of tales of wonder told far and wide among
the islands of the Pacific.[47] In his childhood his mother prophesied
that he should thereafter climb the threshold of his great ancestress
Hine-nui-te-po, and that death should have no more dominion over men. A
happy prediction, but alas! never destined to be fulfilled, for even the
would-be saviour Maui himself did not escape the doom of mortality. The
way in which he became subject to death was this. His father took him to
the water to be baptized, for infant baptism was a regular part of Maori
ritual.[48] But when the baptism was over and the usual prayers had
been offered for making the lad sacred and clean from all impurity, his
father bethought him that through haste or forgetfulness he had 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 vanquished by?"
And his father answered him, "By your great ancestress, by
Hine-nui-te-po, who, if you look, you may see flashing, and, as it were,
opening and shutting there, where the horizon meets the sky." And Maui
answered, "Lay aside such idle thoughts, and let us both fearlessly seek
whether men are to die or live for ever." And his father said, "My
child, there has been an ill omen for us; when I was baptizing you, I
omitted a portion of the fitting prayers, and that I know will be the
cause of your perishing." Then Maui asked his father, "What is my
ancestress Hine-nui-te-po like?" and he answered, "What you see yonder
shining so brightly red are her eyes, and her teeth are as sharp and
hard as pieces of volcanic glass; her body is like that of a man, and
as for the pupils of her eyes, they are jasper; and her hair is like the
tangles of long sea-weed, and her mouth is like that of a barracouta."
[47] E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, pp.
233 _sqq._, _s.v._ "Maui"; Horatio Hale, _United States
Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology_ (Philadelphia,
1846), p. 23.
[48] J. L. Nicholas, _Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand_
(London, 1817), i. 61 _sq._, "The New Zealanders make it an
invariable practice, when a child is born among them, to take it
to the _Tohunga_, or priest, who sprinkles it on the face with
water, from a certain leaf which he holds in his hand for that
purpose; and they believe that this ceremony is not only
beneficial to the infant, but that the neglect of it would be
attended with 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. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, Second Edition (London,
1870), pp. 184 _sqq_. Compare J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage
autour du Monde et a la recherche de la Perouse, Histoire du
Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 443 _sq_. (who says that the
baptism was performed by women); E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New
Zealand_ (London, 1843), ii. 28-30 (who, in contradiction to all
the other authorities, says that the naming of the child was
unconnected with its baptism).
[49] Sir George Grey, _Polynesian Mythology_ (London, 1855), p.
32.
Now Hine-nui-te-po was the Great Woman of Night, the Goddess of Death,
who dwelt in the nether world and dragged down men to herself. But Maui
was not afraid, for he had caught the great Sun himself in a snare and
beaten him and caused him to go so tardily as we now see him creeping
across the sky 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, and the large robin, and the thrush, and the
yellow hammer, and the pied fantail (_tiwakawaka, Rhipidura
flabellifora_), and every kind of little bird; and these all assembled
together, and they started with Maui in the evening, and arrived at the
dwelling of Hine-nui-te-po, and found her fast asleep.
Then Maui addressed them all, and said, "My little friends, now if you
see me creep into this old chieftainess, do not laugh at what you see.
Nay, nay, do not, I pray you, but when I have got altogether inside her,
and just as I am coming out of her mouth, then you may shout 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 she will certainly
kill me at once; but if you do not laugh until I am quite inside her,
and am on the point of coming out of her mouth, I shall live, and
Hine-nui-te-po will die." And his little friends answered, "Go on then,
brave sir, but pray take good care of yourself."
Then the young hero started off, and twisted the strings of his weapon
tight round his wrist, and went into the house, and stripped off his
clothes, and the skin on his hips was as mottled and beautiful as the
skin of a mackerel by reason of the tattoo marks cut on it with the
chisel of Uetongo, and he entered the old chieftainess. The little birds
now screwed up their little mouths to keep back their laughter when
they saw him disappearing 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 sons were born to him,
and some of his descendants are alive to this day. That, according to
Maori tradition, is how death came into the world; for if only Maui had
passed safely through the jaws of the Goddess of Death, men would have
died no more and death itself would have been destroyed. Thus the Maoris
set down human mortality at the door of the pied fantail, since but for
his unseasonable merriment we might all have lived for ever.[50]
[50] Sir George Grey, _Polynesian Mythology_, pp. 56-58; John
White, _The Ancient History of the Maori_ (Wellington and
London, 1887-1889), ii. 98, 105-107. For another version of the
myth, told with some minor variations, see S. Percy Smith, _The
Lore of the Whare-w[=a]nanga_, Part I. (New Plymouth, N.Z.,
1913), pp. 145 _sq._, 176-178. For the identification of the
bird _tiwakawaka_ see E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative
Dictionary_, p. 519, _s.v._ "Tiwaiwaka."
Sec. 4. _The Beliefs of the Maoris concerning the Souls of the Dead_
When a chief died, a loud howl or wail announced the melancholy event,
and the neighbours flocked to the scene of death to testify their
sorrow. The wives and near relations, especially the women, of the
deceased displayed their anguish by cutting their faces, arms, legs, and
breasts with flints or shells till the blood flowed down in streams; it
was not wiped off, for the more the person of a mourner was covered with
clotted gore, the greater was esteemed 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
first day a brother of the deceased used to beat the body with fresh
flax gathered for the purpose; this he did to drive away any evil thing
that might be hovering about the corpse. In the olden time one or more
of the chief's wives would strangle themselves, that their souls might
accompany their dead lord and wait upon him in the other world, and with
the same intentions slaves were killed, lest the great man should lack
attendants in the spirit land.[51]
[51] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, pp. 135 _sqq._; J.
Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la recherche de
la Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 541
_sq._; Servant, "Notice sur la Nouvelle-Zelande," _Annales de la
Propagation 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 Story of New Zealand_, i. 185 _sqq._; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A
Maui, or New Zealand and its Inhabitants_, Second Edition
(London, 1870), pp. 217 _sq._; E. Tregear, "The Maoris of New
Zealand," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xix.
(1890) pp. 104 _sq._
The body was kept for three days because, we are told, the soul was
believed not to quit its mortal habitation till the third day.[52] The
mode of disposing of the corpse differed in different districts and
according to the rank of the deceased. In some places a grave was dug in
the house and the body buried in a sitting posture, the legs being kept
in that position by bandages or doubled up against the chest. In the
grave the dead man retained the fine garments in which he had been
dressed together with the family ornaments of jade and shark's teeth.
With him also was usually interred his property, especially the clothes
which he had worn and everything else that had touched him during his
last illness. The weapons of a warrior were laid near him that he might
be able to fight his battles in the spirit land. In other places the
corpse was laid in a box on a stage; or two pieces of an old canoe were
set upright in the earth, and in the hollow between them the body was
seated on a grating so as to allow the products of decomposition to drip
through on the ground. In other places 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 two years, for the final ceremony. When this took place, all
the friends and relatives of the dead were summoned to assist, and a
great feast was given: the bones were scraped, painted red, decked with
feathers, and wrapped up in mats. The precious bundle was then deposited
in a small canoe or a miniature house elevated on a pole; or it was
carried to the top of some sacred tree and there left on a small stage.
Sometimes the bones were concealed in a hollow tree in a secret place of
the forest, or hidden away in one of the numerous limestone caverns or
in some lonely and inaccessible chasm among the rocks. The motive for
secret burial was a fear lest an enemy should get possession of the
bones and profane them by making fish-hooks out of them or converting
the skull into a baler for his canoe. Such a profanation was deemed a
deadly insult to the surviving relatives. After a burial the persons who
had dressed or carried the corpse, and all indeed who had had anything
to do with it, repaired to the nearest stream and plunged themselves
several times over head in the water.[53]
[52] J. Dumont d'Urville, _op. cit._ ii. 541.
[53] J. Dumont d'Urville, _op. cit._ ii. 543 _sq._; W. Yate,
_op. cit._ p. 137; Servant, "Notice sur la Nouvelle-Zelande,"
_Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xv. (1843) p. 25; E.
Dieffenbach, _Travels 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 _sqq._; E. Tregear, "The Maori
of New Zealand," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
xix. (1890) p. 105; Elsdon Best, "Cremation among the Maori
Tribes of New Zealand," _Man_, xiv. (1914) p. 110.
In some districts the removal of the bones from their temporary to their
final resting-place was the occasion of a grand annual festival in which
several neighbouring tribes took part. The bones of all members of the
tribes who had died within the year were taken down from the stages or
trees where the bodies had been temporarily deposited. The grave-clothes
having been removed, the mouldering remains were wrapped in new blankets
and carried in procession, attended by the crowd, to a place where they
were deposited on a carpet of leaves. Should any putrid flesh be found
still adhering to the bones, it was scraped 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, whistled, wrestled, quarrelled, bought and sold.
This Holy Fair, which went by the name of Hahunga, lasted several days.
At the end of it the mourners, or revellers, dispersed and returned to
their homes, laden with food which had been made ready for them by their
hosts.[54] Great importance was attached to the final disposal of the
remains of the dead. According to one account, the soul of the dead man
could not rest till his bones were laid in the sepulchre of his
ancestors, which was often a natural cave or grotto. There they were
deposited on a shelf or platform a few feet above the floor of the
cavern.[55]
[54] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, pp. 137-139; Servant,
"Notice sur la Nouvelle-Zelande," _Annales de la Propagation de
la Foi_, xv. (1843) pp. 26 _sq._ The name _Hahunga_ is doubtless
connected with the verb _hahu_ which means "to exhume the bones
of dead persons before depositing them in their final
resting-place." See E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative
Dictionary_, p. 42, _s.v._ "hahu."
[55] J. Dumont d'Urville, _op. cit._ ii. 543, 545.
Not uncommonly the bones of the dead, instead of being preserved, were
burned.[56] But cremation, though not unusual, seems never to have been
a general custom with the Maoris. They resorted to it only in
exceptional circumstances, for example, in order to stay the spread of
disease, or in cases where a tribe occupied open country and found no
suitable place where to lay the bones of their dead after exhumation.
Cremation for the latter reason is said to have been practised by the
Ngati-apa tribe in 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 reason even the wounded, whom they could
not carry with them, were sometimes thrown into great fires and burnt
alive. If the slain man was a chief, only his body would be consumed in
the flames; his head would be cut off, steamed, cured, and carried home,
to be wept over by his friends. In the Bay of Plenty district the bodies
of persons who died of a certain disease called _Kai uaua_, apparently
consumption, used to be burnt to prevent the spread of the malady, and
all the ashes were carefully buried.[57]
[56] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 220. This was called
_tahunga_, "burning," a word no doubt derived from _tahu_,
"to set on fire, kindle." See E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian
Comparative Dictionary_, p. 444, _s.v._ "tahu."
[57] Elsdon Best, "Cremation amongst the Maori tribes of New
Zealand," _Man_, xiv. (1914) pp. 110 _sq._
Often enough the heads of dead relatives were cut off, dried, and
preserved by the family for many years in order to be occasionally
brought forth and mourned over. Sometimes a widow would sleep with her
husband's severed head at her side. After a victory, too, it was
customary 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 spells for the
sake of the crops, the dried heads were sometimes brought out and
placed at the edge of the field, for this was believed to promote the
growth of the sweet potatoes.[58] Apparently the spirits of the dead
were thought able to quicken the fruits of the earth.
[58] Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the
Maori of New Zealand," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol.
xii. no. 4 (December 1903), pp. 195-197. Compare W. Yate, _An
Account of New Zealand_, pp. 130 _sqq._; E. Dieffenbach,
_Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 66.
At all events the Maoris undoubtedly believed that the souls of the
departed survive the death of their bodies for a longer or shorter time
and in their disembodied state can influence the living for weal or woe.
The belief in the survival of the soul is strikingly manifested in their
old custom of killing widows and slaves to serve dead chiefs in the
other world. It found expression in the more harmless custom of laying
food beside a dead person or burying it with him in the grave; but, as
usually happens in such cases, the ghost only consumed the spiritual
essence of the victuals, considerately leaving the gross material
substance to be despatched 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 its ascent to heaven. Every
spell was supposed to raise the soul one stage nearer to the abode of
bliss. But the ascent was long and tedious, for there were no less than
ten heavens one above the other; the tenth was believed to be the
principal abode of the gods. When the parents of the child who had been
despatched to the happy land with taro in each hand were asked, "Why
taro, if the little one is gone to heaven?" they answered that they
were not quite sure whether it went up or down, and therefore as an
additional precaution they planted a seed of taro in the grave, so that
their offspring might find something to eat either above or below.[61]
[59] J. Dumont d'Urville, _op. cit._ ii. 542; G. F. Angas,
_op. cit._ ii. 71; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 220.
[60] J. Dumont d'Urville, _l.c._
[61] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 220.
Similar ceremonies were performed to facilitate the ascension of the
souls of chiefs and priests. Before the body was taken to the place of
burial, it was laid out with its feet towards the north, and all the
blood-relations of the deceased, men, women, and children, assembled
round it. Then the priest, standing at the head of the corpse, between
the rows of the people, chanted two incantations, of which the second
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 the
cord with a jerk, to disconnect the soul from the body, lest it should
remain and afflict the relatives.[62] This last rite, with the reason
assigned for it, is significant at once of the dread which the Maoris
felt for departed spirits, and of the very materialistic conception
which they entertained of the human soul, since they appear to have
imagined that it could be detached from the body by jerking at a cord.
[62] John White, "A Chapter from Maori Mythology," _Report of
the Third Meeting of the Australasian Association for the
Advancement of Science, held at Christchurch, New Zealand, in
January 1891_, pp. 362 _sq._
The wish to raise the soul to heaven was perhaps the motive for another
curious rite performed at the obsequies of a chief. When the body had
been buried, the chief returned to the village; but the men who had
carried the body went to the nearest swamp, and having caught a
swamp-sparrow (_matata_) sent word to the priest, who forthwith rejoined
them. Each of the bearers was then provided with a stick to which
certain of the feathers 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 simultaneously, keeping perfect time, till the priest
had concluded his chant, when they all stood erect with outstretched
arms. After that the priest collected the sticks and threw them down in
front of the _mua_, which seems to have been a kind of altar.[63] We may
surmise that the ceremony was intended to waft the soul of the dead
chief upward, the feathers of the bird being naturally fitted to
facilitate its heavenward flight.
[63] John White, "A Chapter from Maori Mythology," _op. cit._
p. 363. As to the meaning of _mua_, see E. Tregear,
_Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p. 267, _s.v._ "mua."
At other times, however, with the inconsistency so common in such
matters, it appears to have been supposed that the soul set out on its
far journey across the sea, and steps were accordingly taken to equip it
for the voyage. Thus we hear of a _wahi tapu_ or sacred 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 with a double set of palings,
"calabashes of food and water, and a dish prepared from the pigeon, were
placed for the ghost to regale itself when visiting the spot; and the
heathen natives aver that at night the spirit comes and feeds from the
sacred calabashes."[64]
[64] G. F. Angas, _Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New
Zealand_, ii. 70 _sq._
Many people in the Taranaki district thought that souls went neither up
nor down, but always stayed near their mouldering bodies. Hence the
sacred grove in which their remains were buried was full of disembodied
spirits; and when a man died a violent death his soul wandered about
disconsolate, till a priest by his spells and enchantments had brought
the poor ghost within the spiritual fold.[65]
[65] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 220 _sq._
When a chief was killed in battle and eaten by his foes, as often
happened, his departed spirit entered the stones of the oven in which
his body had been cooked, and the stones retained their heat so long as
the ghost was in them. Meanwhile his sorrowing friends at home recited
their most potent spells to draw his soul out of the oven and back to
the sacred grove (_wahi tapu_) the burial-place of his people; for
otherwise the soul could find no repose, but must roam about for 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 sickness among
the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. Within their sacred precincts
stood altars or stages for offerings to the gods, and any living man who
entered them did so at his peril. For the same reason no one would set
foot in a house where a dead man or woman had been buried. Hence in
nearly every village half the houses stood empty and deserted, falling
into decay, tenanted only by ghosts. The living had constantly before
their eyes the mansions of the dead.[66]
[66] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 221.
The common belief of the Maoris seems to have been that the souls of the
dead pass away to a region of the underworld, which was sometimes called
Po and sometimes Reinga. Properly speaking, Po was night or the
primaeval darkness out of which all forms of life and light were evolved
or created;[67] and Reinga was not so much the spirit land itself as the
leaping-off place where the souls bade good-bye to earth and took their
departure for the far country. This leaping-off place was at the North
Cape, the Land's End of New Zealand. The cape terminates in a steep
cliff with a sea-cave at its foot, into which the tide rushes with a
thunderous roar. There the evil spirit Wiro is thought to dwell, lurking
for his prey; for he battens on such of the passing souls of the dead as
he can get into his clutches. On their passage to the North Cape the
ghosts stop by the way at two hills; at the first, which is called
Wai-hokimai, they wail, cut themselves, and strip off 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 which so many travellers return no more.
Hence when any one has recovered from a dangerous sickness or escaped
some great peril, they say of him that he has come back from the River
of the Water of Life. Even if a soul has crossed that sombre stream, he
may still return to the land of the living, if only he refuses to
partake of the food set before him by the ghosts; but should he taste of
it, he cannot come back. They say that people living near the North Cape
can hear the spirits of the dead passing through the air on their way to
the spirit land; and in the old days, when a battle had been fought and
before the news of it could reach them by word of mouth, the natives
near the cape were made aware of what had happened by the rushing sound
of a great multitude flitting by overhead in the darkness.[68] Perhaps
the sighing of the night-wind or the clangour of birds of passage
winging their way out to sea may have contributed to create or foster
these fancies.
[67] E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_,
p. 342, _s.v._ "Po."
[68] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, pp. 150 _sqq._; _id._, _Maori Religion and
Mythology_, p. 45; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 52, 231;
W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 140; E. Dieffenbach,
_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._ "Reinga" and "Waiora";
John White, "A Chapter from Maori Mythology," _Report of the
Third Meeting of the Australasian Association for the
Advancement of Science, held at Christchurch, New Zealand,
in January 1891_, pp. 361 _sq._
On the day after a burial the priest used to perform a ceremony to
facilitate the passage of the soul to its final rest. For this purpose
some men would go out in the morning and kill a small bird of the swamps
called _kokata_ and pluck up some reeds of a certain sort (_wiwi_).
These they brought to the priest 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 grave in a direction
pointing towards Hawaiki, the land far away from which the forefathers
of the Maoris came long ago. Another stalk of grass or fern was laid
near the place of death, and along these stalks the soul of the dead man
travelled to rejoin his friends and kinsfolk who had gone before.[69]
[69] E. Shortland, _Maori Religion and Mythology_, p. 44. Such
a stalk to aid the spirit on its passage was called a _tiri_.
Compare E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_,
p. 517, _s.v._ "Tiri." The ceremony described in the text
resembles in some points the one which seems intended to raise
the soul of the deceased to heaven. See above, p. 25.
As might be anticipated, the accounts which the Maoris gave of the
spirit world and of life in it were neither clear nor consistent.
According to one account, while the heavens increase in beauty as they
ascend one above the other, the lower regions increase in darkness and
horror as they 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 guise returned to earth, where they died a second death and
so finally perished. But it was only the souls of common folk which came
to this melancholy end. Chiefs and priests were believed to be descended
from the gods, and at death their souls ascended to heaven, there to
live for ever.[70]
[70] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 232; John White, "A Chapter
from Maori Mythology," _Report of the Third Meeting of the
Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held
at Christchurch, New Zealand, in January 1891_, pp. 361 _sq._
Other reports, however, paint the nether world in more cheerful
colours. We are told that the souls of the dead live there very much as
people do on earth, but all good things are more plentiful there than
here. The staple food of the ghosts is sweet potatoes, and the quality
of the potatoes appears to be remarkably fine; for once a woman, who had
the good fortune to go to the spirit land and come back, received from
her dead 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
attention she threw the two roots of sweet potato behind her, and while
the sprites were munching them she made good her escape up the cliff and
succeeded in reaching home. Her friends were very glad to see her again,
but they always lamented that she had not brought back at least one of
those gigantic roots of sweet potato, since it would unquestionably have
done much to improve the quality of sweet potatoes grown here on
earth.[71]
[71] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 48 _sq._, 67,
118; E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, pp. 153 _sqq._; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 233
_sq._
But the spirits of the dead are by no means strictly confined to the
lower world; they can quit it from time to time and return to earth,
there to influence the actions and fortunes of the living and to
communicate with them through the priest, who can hear their voices.
They speak in whistling tones, which even common folk can sometimes
distinguish as they walk about in the dark. Often their communications
are made to the priest or chief in dreams, and he announces the glad or
mournful tidings to other people in the morning. 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 priest could summon up the spirits of
the dead and converse with them in the presence of the relatives or of
strangers; at these interviews, which were held within doors and in the
dark, the voices of the ghosts, or perhaps of the priestly
ventriloquist, were sometimes distinctly audible even to sceptical
Europeans. Nor was the art of necromancy confined to men; for we read of
an old woman who, like the witch of Endor, professed to exercise this
ghostly office, and treated an English visitor to an exhibition of her
powers.[74]
[72] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 67, 118; E.
Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders_,
ii. 83, 84.
[73] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, p. 83.
[74] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, pp. 84 _sqq._; _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha
Maori (London, 1884), pp. 122 _sqq._ As to the belief in the
reappearance of the dead among the living compare R. A. Cruise,
_Journal of a Ten Months' 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 man has been murdered, it
is customary for each person to throw a stone upon it; and the
same practice is observed by all those who visit a cavern at the
North Cape, through which the spirits of departed men are
supposed to pass on their way to a future world."
The spirits of the dead were sometimes useful to the living, for
commonly enough they would appear to their kinsfolk in dreams and warn
them of approaching foes or other dangers. Again, they might be and were
invoked by spells and enchantments to avenge a murder or even to slay an
innocent person against whom the enchanter had a grudge.[75] But for the
most part the ghosts were greatly dreaded as malicious demons who worked
harm to man.[76] Even the nearest and dearest relations were believed to
have their natures radically changed by death and to hate those whom
they had loved in life.[77] And so powerful were these malignant beings
supposed to be that they were confused with the gods, or rather the
spirits of the dead became themselves gods to all intents and purposes,
and played a much more important part in the religious life of the
Maoris than the high primaeval deities, the personifications of nature,
who figured in 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 national religion of the
Maoris as distinguished from the tribal and family religions, which
consisted in the worship of nearer and better remembered progenitors.
The great importance attached by the Maoris to the worship of ancestors
may account, we are told, for the care with which they preserved their
genealogies; since the names of ancestors often formed the groundwork of
their religious formulas (_karakias_), and any error or even hesitation
in repeating these prayers or incantations was deemed fatal to their
efficacy.[79] "Ancestor worship, or rather the deification of
ancestors, was essentially a Maori cult. It was a form of necrolatry, or
hero worship. A man would placate the spirit of his father, grandfather,
or ancestor, and make offerings to the same, that such spirit might
protect his life principle, warn him of approaching danger, and give
force or effectiveness to his rites and charms of black or white
magic."[80]
[75] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," _Journal of
the Polynesian Society_, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), p. 182.
[76] Elsdon Best, _op. cit._ p. 184.
[77] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 104.
[78] E. Shortland, _The Southern Districts of New Zealand_
(London, 1851), p. 294; _id._, _Traditions and Superstitions of
the New Zealanders_, 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 the spirits of ancestors, whose
worship entered largely into their religion, that it is
difficult to distinguish one from the other."
[79] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, p. 81; _id._, _Maori Religion and Mythology_, p.
11. As to the _karakias_, which were prayers or invocations,
spells or incantations, addressed to gods or ancestral spirits,
see E. Shortland, _Maori Religion and Mythology_, pp. 28 _sqq._;
E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p. 128,
_s.v._ "karakia." Apparently the _karakia_ partook of the nature
of a spell rather than of a prayer, since it was believed to be
so potent that the mere utterance of it compelled the gods to do
the will of the person who recited the formula. See R. Taylor,
_Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 180 _sq._: "The Maori, in his heathen
state, never undertook any work, whether hunting, fishing,
planting, 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 presided
over them to yield a good increase; when they prepared their
nets and their hooks, they must force the ocean god to let his
fish enter them; as the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and
the violent take it by storm, so the heathen Maori sought, by
spells and incantations, to compel the gods to yield to their
wishes; they added sacrifices and offerings at the same time, to
appease as it were their anger, for being thus constrained to do
what they wished them. Their ancestors were addressed as
powerful familiar friends; they gave them offerings, and if it
can be said that any prayers were offered up, it was to them
they were made. The word _karakia_, which we use for prayer,
formerly meant a spell, charm, or incantation."
[80] Elsdon Best, "Maori Religion," _Report of the Twelfth
Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of
Science, held at Brisbane, 1909_, p. 459.
The ancestral spirits who particularly watched over the fortunes of a
tribe were the souls of its dead warriors and great men. In war these
powerful, though invisible, beings were thought to attend the army and
direct its movements on the march by communicating advice or warning
through some one or 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, invoking the aid of his friendly spirit;
for the sensation of fear was ascribed to the baneful influence of a
hostile spirit. If the friendly spirit prevailed, and the craven spirit
was expelled, the young man would rush into the thickest of the fight
and prove himself the bravest of the brave.[81]
[81] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, pp. 81 _sq._
The interest taken by the spirits of the dead in mundane affairs seldom
extended beyond the limits of the tribe to which they belonged. Hence a
captive in war, who was carried away and enslaved by another tribe,
ceased from that moment to be under the protection and care of any
ancestral spirit or god. For the ancestral spirits of his own tribe 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 their
worshippers; they were therefore free to perform many menial offices,
particularly in regard to carrying and cooking food, which no free Maori
could discharge without sinning against the sacred law of taboo and
incurring the wrath of the ancestral spirits, who for such a
transgression might punish the sinner with sickness or death.[82]
[82] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, pp. 82 _sq._; _id._, _The Southern Districts of New
Zealand_, pp. 296 _sq._
In addition to their deified ancestors, who had lived as men of flesh
and blood on earth, the Maoris believed in certain great primaeval
deities, who had existed before the human race came into being, and
whose doings were the theme of many mythical stories. These mighty
beings appear to have been 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. The practical religion of
the Maori was concentrated on the souls of his deceased kinsfolk and
forefathers: "neither in any existing superstition nor tradition, purely
such, is there to be found internal evidence that an idea of God existed
more exalted than that of the spirit of a dead ancestor."[83]
[83] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, p. 80. Compare _id._, _Traditions and Superstitions
of the New Zealanders_, p. 81; _id._, _The Southern Districts of
New Zealand_, p. 294; _id._, _Maori Religion and Mythology_, pp.
10 _sq._ In Maori mythology Rangi is the personification of the
sky, and Papa of earth. They were the primal parents, and the
other great gods were their offspring. See Elsdon Best, "The
Maori Genius for Personification," _Transactions of the New
Zealand Institute_, 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 Best, "Maori Religion," _Report of the
Twelfth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the
Advancement of Science, held at Brisbane, 1909_, p. 458. The
same four gods, with names only dialectically different, were,
as we shall see later on, the principal deities of the Sandwich
Islanders, the most distant geographically from the Maoris of
all the Polynesians. The coincidence furnishes an example of the
homogeneity of religion which prevailed among the various
branches of the Polynesian race.
The word which the Maoris applied to a god, whether a personification of
nature or the spirit of a dead ancestor, was _atua_. The name is not
confined to the Maori language, but is the common word for god
throughout Polynesia.[84] When the Maoris attempt to define the nature
of an _atua_, they have recourse to the same comparisons with a shadow
and with breath which appear to underlie their conception 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, to be feared and placated or conciliated,
but not worshipped. Their principal task seems to have been the
inflicting upon mankind of diverse evils, pains, and penalties. Of the
few good offices performed by them, the warning of the people in regard
to coming troubles, seems to have been the most important. The vast
majority of the so-called gods of the Maori were simply deified
ancestors."[86]
[84] E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, pp.
30 _sq._, _s.v._ "Atua."
[85] J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la
recherche de la Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833),
ii. 516 _sq._
[86] Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the
Maori of New Zealand," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol.
xi. no. 2 (June 1902). pp. 63 _sq._
In order to illustrate the difference between the Maori conception of
deity and our own, I will quote the words of another eminent authority
on the native religion of the New Zealanders. He says, "Before the
mythology of the Maori is further considered, it will be necessary
briefly to state what were the ideas of God entertained by the natives.
The word _atua_, or spirit, which is used for God, formerly had various
significations; a plague or disease was also _he atua_, or God; a thief
was an _atua_, thus also a thievish dog was _he kuri atua_, a god-like
dog, so also _he tangata atua ki te muru_, a man equal to a god in
stealing; a child who pilfered was _he tamaiti atua_, a divine child;
there were great spirits and small ones, a man's spirit was an _atua
pore pore_, a little spirit, but Maru Rongomai and other gods were _Atua
nui_, great gods; there were _atua ika_, reptile or fish gods; a great
chief was called _He ika_, a fish, sea monster, or reptile, and was
regarded as a malignant god in life, and a still worse one after death;
there were 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 the natives give of their gods and their exploits, we
have but a magnified history of their chiefs, their wars, murders, and
lusts, with the addition of some supernatural powers; they were
cannibals; influenced by like feelings and passions as men, and were
uniformly bad; to them were ascribed all the evils incident to the human
race; each disease was supposed to be occasioned by a different god, who
resided in the part affected; thus, Tonga, the god who caused headache,
took up his abode in the forehead; Moko Titi, a lizard god, was the
source of all pains in the breast; Tu-tangata-kino was the god of the
stomach; Titihai occasioned pains in the ankles and feet; Rongomai and
Tuparitapua were the gods of consumption, and the wasting away of the
legs and arms; Koro-kio-ewe presided over childbirth, and did his worst
to unfortunate females in that state. In fact, the entire human body
appears to have been shared out amongst those evil beings, who ruled
over each part, to afflict and pain the poor creatures who worshipped
them."[88]
[87] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 134 _sq._
[88] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 137.
Anything, indeed, whether good or evil, which excited the fear or wonder
of the Maoris would seem in the old days to have been dubbed by them an
_atua_ and invested with the attributes of divinity. For example, when a
traveller in the early 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 person, was treated by the
whole of them with profound reverence.[89] Other travellers have had
similar experiences among the Maoris,[90] and compasses and barometers
have also been accorded divine honours by these ignorant savages.[91]
[89] J. L. Nicholas, _Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand_
(London, 1817), i. 254.
[90] J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la
recherche de la Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833),
ii. 516.
[91] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 118.
Sec. 5. _Taboo among the Maoris_
But the most momentous practical consequence which flowed from their
belief in the spirits of the dead was the enormous influence which that
creed wielded in establishing and maintaining the 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 Maoris called it, and afterwards show how
this extraordinary system of society and religion was directly based on
a belief in the existence of ghosts and their mighty power over human
destiny.
First, then, as to taboo or _tapu_ itself. This curious institution, as
I have said, prevailed throughout all the widely scattered islands of
Polynesia, but nowhere to a greater extent than in New Zealand. It
pervaded the whole life of the natives, affected their plans, influenced
their actions, and in the absence of an efficient police provided a
certain security both for their persons and their property. Sometimes it
was used for political, and sometimes for religious purposes; sometimes
it was the means of saving life, and at other times it was the
ostensible reason for taking life away.[92] It may be defined as a
system of consecration which made any person, place, or thing sacred
either permanently or for a limited time.[93] The effect of this
consecration was to separate the sacred person or thing from all contact
with common (_noa_)[94] persons and things: it established a sort of
quarantine for the protection not only of the sacred persons themselves,
but of common folk, who were supposed to be injured or killed by mere
contact with a tabooed person or object. For the sanctity which the
taboo conferred on people and things was conceived of as a sort of
dangerous atmosphere, charged with a spiritual electricity, which
discharged itself with serious and even fatal effect on all rash
intruders. A tabooed person might not be touched by any one, so long as
the taboo or state of consecration lasted; he might not even put his own
hand to his own head; and he was most stringently forbidden to touch
food with his hands. Hence he was either fed like a child by another,
who put the food into his mouth; or he had to lap up his victuals like a
dog from the ground, with his hands held behind his back; or lastly he
might convey the nourishment by means of a fern stalk to his mouth. When
he wished to drink, somebody else poured water into his mouth from a
calabash without allowing the vessel to touch his lips; for mere contact
with the lips of the tabooed man would have rendered the vessel itself
sacred or tabooed and therefore unfit for common use. Similarly, when he
desired to wash his hands, water had to be 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
undertake any other labour. The fields themselves were sacred during
these operations; none but the persons who were tabooed for the purpose
might set foot on the ground or pluck up the weeds which grow rankly
round the roots of the vegetable.[98] Similarly, in their great
fishing-expeditions to catch mackerel, all concerned in making or
mending the nets were under a taboo: the ground where the nets were made
was sacred, and so was the river on the banks of which the work went on.
No man but the tabooed persons might walk over the land or pass up or
down the river in a canoe: no fire might be lighted within a prescribed
distance: no food might be dressed while the taboo lasted. Not till the
net had been finished and wetted with the sacred water, and the owner
had caught and eaten a fish, did these burdensome restrictions come to
an end by the removal of the taboo.[99] Once more, the men who took part
in a warlike expedition were under a severe taboo and had to observe
very strictly the customs which that mysterious state of consecration
rendered obligatory.[100] Even after their return home they were not
allowed to enter their houses or to hold any direct communication with
their families who had remained there, till they had been rendered
common (_noa_) by a ceremony of desecration. Before that ceremony took
place, the warriors were obliged to throw away the remains of the bodies
of their foes on which, as usual, they had been feasting; for being
sacred food the flesh could only be touched by sacred or tabooed
persons. One woman only, the _wahine ariki_, as she was called, that is
the elder female of the elder branch of the stock from which the tribe
traced their descent, was permitted to touch the sanctified meat;
indeed, in order to carry out the ritual of desecration in due form she
was expected and required to swallow an ear of the first enemy killed in
battle.[101] A warlike expedition might lay even people at home under a
taboo; for all who remained behind, including old men, women, and
slaves, were often required to observe a rigid fast and to abstain from
smoking till the return of the warriors.[102]
[92] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, pp. 84 _sq._
[93] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 84; R. Taylor, _Te
Ika A Maui_, p. 163.
[94] E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, pp.
268 _sq._, _s.v._ "Noa."
[95] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, pp. 85 _sq._; R.
Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 163, 164.
[96] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 40.
[97] J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la
recherche de la Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833),
iii. 685; W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 86; E.
Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 104 _sq._; Servant,
"Notice sur la Nouvelle-Zelande," _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 tabooed man
touching his child or grandchild and taking food or drink from
the child's hands. But when that was done, the taboo was
transferred to the child, who retained it for the rest of the
day. See E. Dieffenbach, _op. cit._ ii. 105.
[98] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 85; R. Taylor,
_Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 165 _sq._; _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha
Maori, pp. 103 _sq._
[99] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 85.
[100] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 96, 114 _sq._
[101] E. Shortland, _The Southern Districts of New Zealand_, pp.
68 _sq._
[102] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 114 _sq._
But in contrast to the temporary taboos which affected common folk and
debarred them for a time from familiar intercourse with their fellows, a
perpetual and very stringent taboo was laid on the persons and property
of chiefs, especially of those high hereditary chiefs who bore the title
of _Ariki_ and were thought to be able at any time to hold visible
converse with their dead ancestors.[103] Strictly speaking, "the _ariki_
of a Maori tribe is the senior male descendant of the elder branch of
the tribe, that is, he is a descendant of the elder son of the elder son
of each generation from the time of the original ancestor down to the
present day. As such, he was of old regarded almost as a god, inasmuch
as he represented all that there was of _m[)a]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 inferior men, but only by those who had more
powerful _atuas_ in them; the victorious chief who had slain numbers,
swallowed their eyes, and drunk their blood, was supposed to have added
the spirits of his victims to his own, and thus increased his _mana_ or
power; to keep up this idea, and hinder the lower orders from trying
whether it were possible to kill such corporeal and living gods, was the
grand work of the _tapu_."[105] The godhead of a chief was thought to
reside in his eyes, especially in his left eye; that was why by
swallowing the eye or eyes of a slain chief a living chief was believed
to absorb the divine spirit of the dead man and thereby to strengthen
his own divinity; the more eyes he swallowed, the greater god he
became.[106]
[103] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 40, 112
_sq._, 356; E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the
New Zealanders_, p. 104; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 149,
164, 212 _sq._; E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative
Dictionary_, pp. 23 _sq._, _s.v._ "Ariki." The word _ariki_
signifies properly the first-born or heir, whether male or
female, of a family.
[104] Lieut.-Col. W. E. Gudgeon, "Maori Religion," _Journal of
the Polynesian Society_, vol. xiv. no. 3 (September 1905), p.
130. Compare _id._, "The Tipua-Kura and other Manifestations of
the Spirit World," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol. xv.
no. 57 (March 1906), p. 38.
[105] R. Taylor, _Te Ika a Maui_, p. 173. _Mana_ means
authority, especially divine authority or supernatural power.
See E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p.
203, _s.v._ "Mana"; and for a full discussion of the conception
see Lieut.-Col. W. E. Gudgeon, "Mana Tangata," _Journal of the
Polynesian Society_, vol. xiv. no. 2 (June 1905), pp. 49-66.
"_Mana_ plays a leading part in the ability of a leader, or
successes in war of celebrated warriors. When a man frequently
undertakes daring deeds, which ought under ordinary
circumstances to fail, but none the less prove successful, he is
said to possess _mana_, and thereafter is 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 his capacity to enforce the aid and attendance of these
minor deities. To this end every man with any pretension to
_mana_ had a knowledge of certain forms of invocation by which
he could summon the spirits of long departed heroes and
ancestors, but it must not be supposed that these invocations
would necessarily have power in the mouths of all men, for such
was not the case. The efficacy of a _karakia_ or invocation
depended in part on its method of delivery, and in part on the
_mana_ of the man who used it" (W. E. Gudgeon, _op. cit._ p.
50). Compare R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 172, 173; _Old New
Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 100.
[106] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 147, 352. The soul was
thought to reside especially in the left eye; accordingly it was
the left eye of an enemy which was most commonly swallowed by a
victorious chief who desired to increase his spiritual power.
See J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la
recherche de la Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833),
ii. 527; E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 118, 128
_sq._
Every such divine chief was under a permanent taboo; he was as it were
surrounded by an atmosphere of sanctity which attached to his person and
never left him; it was his birthright, a part of himself of which he
could not be divested, and it was well understood and recognised by
everybody at all times. And the sanctity was not confined to his person,
it was an infection which extended or was communicated to all his
movable property, especially to his clothes, weapons, ornaments, and
tools, indeed to everything which he touched. Even the petty chiefs and
fighting men, everybody indeed who could claim the title of _rangatira_
or gentleman, possessed in some degree this mysterious quality.[107]
However, in young people of rank the sanctity which appertained to them
by virtue of their birth was supposed to be only latent; it did not
develop or burst into full bloom till they had reached mature age and
set up house on their 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 other fire, if he should have blown upon it
with his breath in lighting it, became at once _tapu_, and could be used
for no common or culinary purpose. Even to light a pipe at it would
subject any inferior person, or in many instances an equal, to a
terrible attack of the _tapu morbus_, besides being a slight or affront
to the dignity of the person himself. I have seen two or three young men
fairly wearing themselves out on a wet day and with bad apparatus
trying to make fire to cook with, by rubbing two sticks together, when
on a journey, and at the same time there was a roaring fire close at
hand at which several _rangatira_ and myself were warming ourselves, but
it was _tapu_, or sacred fire--one of the _rangatira_ had made it from
his own tinder-box, and blown upon it in lighting it, and as there was
not another tinder-box amongst us, fast we must, though hungry as
sharks, till common culinary fire could be obtained."[108]
[107] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 94.
[108] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 98.
The head of a chief was always and at all times deemed most sacred, and
in consequence he might not even touch it with his own hand; if he
chanced to commit the sacrilege, he was obliged at once to apply his
fingers to his sacred nose and to snuff up the odour of sanctity which
they had abstracted, thus restoring the holy effluvium to the place from
which it had been taken.[109] For the same reason the cutting of a
chief's hair was a most difficult and delicate operation. While it
lasted neither the great man himself nor the barber who operated on him
was allowed to do anything or partake of any food except under the
restrictions imposed on all sacred or tabooed persons; to use the
scissors or the shell, with which the operation was performed, for any
other purpose or any other person would have 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 person; nor can he for some days resume his accustomed
occupations, or associate with his fellow-men."[111] The hair of the
first-born of a family in particular, on account of his extreme
sanctity, might be cut by nobody but a priest; and for many days after
the operation had been performed the priestly barber was in a state of
strict taboo. He could do nothing for himself, and might not go near
anybody. He might not touch food with his hands, and no less than three
persons were required to feed him. One of them prepared the food at a
safe distance, took it to a certain place, and retired; a second came
forward, picked up the victuals, carried them to another spot and left
them; finally, a third, venturing into the danger zone, actually brought
the food to the priest and put it into his mouth.[112]
[109] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 87; R. Taylor,
_Te Ika A Maui_, p. 165.
[110] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 87; E.
Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 104.
[111] Richard A. Cruise, _Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in
New Zealand_ (London, 1823), pp. 283 _sq._ Compare J. Dumont
d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la recherche de la
Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 533.
[112] Elsdon Best, "Maori Religion," _Report of the Twelfth
Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of
Science, held at Brisbane, 1909_, p. 463.
The atmosphere of taboo or sanctity which thus surrounded Maori chiefs
and gentlemen not only imposed many troublesome and inconvenient
restraints on the men themselves, it was also frequently a source of
very real danger, loss, and annoyance to other people. For example, it
was a rule that a chief should not blow on a fire with his mouth,
because his breath being sacred would communicate its sanctity to the
fire, and if a slave or a common man afterwards cooked food at the fire
or merely took a brand from it, the chief's holiness would cause that
man's death.[113] Again, if the blood of a high chief flowed on
anything, though it were but a single drop, it rendered the thing sacred
to him, so that it could be used by nobody else. Thus it once happened
that a party of natives came in a fine new canoe to pay their respects
to an eminent chief; the great man stepped into the canoe, and in doing
so he chanced to strike a splinter into his foot, which bled. That
sufficed to consecrate the canoe to him. The owner at once leaped out,
drew the canoe ashore opposite to the chief's house 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. For instance, a woman once ate some peaches
which, though she did not know it, had been taken from a tabooed place.
As soon as she heard where the fruit had come from, the basket which she
was carrying dropped from her hands, and she exclaimed in agony that the
spirit (_atua_) of the chief whose sanctuary had thus been profaned
would kill her. That happened in the afternoon, and next day by twelve
o'clock she was dead.[117] Again, a slave, a strong man in the prime of
life, once found the remains of a chief's dinner beside the road, and
being hungry ate it up without asking any questions. No sooner, however,
did he hear to whom the food had belonged than he was seized with the
most extraordinary convulsions and cramps in the stomach, which never
ceased till he died about sundown the same day. The English eyewitness
who reports the case adds, that any European freethinker who should have
denied that the man was killed by the chief's taboo would have been
listened to by the Maoris with feelings of contempt for his ignorance
and inability to understand plain and direct evidence.[118]
[113] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 165.
[114] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 101; R.
Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 164 _sq._
[115] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 165.
[116] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 164 _sq._
[117] W. Brown, _New Zealand and its Aborigines_ (London, 1845),
p. 76.
[118] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 95-97.
In order that a thing should be consecrated or tabooed to the exclusive
use and possession of a chief, it was not necessary that his sacred
blood should flow on it, or that he should merely touch it; he had only
to call it his head, or his back-bone, or any other part of his body,
and at once the thing, by a legal fiction, 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 to set foot on the land so consecrated, the transgression was
equivalent to a declaration of war. In this simple and easy fashion a
chief might acquire anything that took his fancy from an axe or a canoe
to a landed estate, and the rightful owner of the property dared not
complain nor dispute the claim of his superior.[119]
[119] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superstitions of the New
Zealanders_, p. 111; _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, pp.
137 _sqq._; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 168.
Nevertheless in daily life even ordinary people used the taboo to secure
their property or to acquire for themselves what had hitherto been
common to all. For example, if a man found a piece 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. Again, with a simple piece of flax he might
bar the door of his house or his store of food; the contents of the
house or store were thus rendered inviolable, nobody would meddle with
them.[120]
[120] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 171.
It is easy to see that this form of taboo must have greatly contributed
to create and confirm respect for the rights of private property. The
most valuable articles might, we are told, under ordinary circumstances
be left to its protection in the absence of the owners for any length of
time.[121] Indeed so obvious and so useful is this function of taboo
that one well-informed writer supposes the original purpose of the
institution to have been no other than the preservation of private
property;[122] and another observer, after eulogising its beneficent
effects, 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 was in its origin, I believe, simply a crude and barbarous
form of superstition, which, like many other superstitions, has
accidentally led to good results that were never contemplated by its
ignorant and foolish votaries. It is thus that in the long history of
mankind things which to a contemporary spectator might seem to be almost
unmitigated evils turn out in the end to be fraught with incalculable
good to humanity. This experience, often repeated, enables students of
the past to look forward, even in the darkest hours, with cheerful
confidence to the future.
[121] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 97.
[122] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 94.
[123] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 100,
"Ridiculous as this custom of the _tapu_ has appeared to some,
and as many of its applications really are, it was,
notwithstanding, a wholesome restraint, and, in many cases,
almost the only one that could have been imposed; the heavy
penalties attached to the violation of its laws serving in one
tribe, or in several not in actual hostility with each other, as
moral and legal commandments. It was undoubtedly the ordinance
of a wise legislator." Compare G. F. Angas, _Savage Life 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, with its far-reaching
ramifications, must have been the conception of a very gifted
mind, for, as a governing factor, it is very superior to the
Hindu institution of caste. It must, moreover, have been
initiated during a period of civilisation, to which the
Polynesians have long been strangers, but with which at one
period of their history they were sufficiently familiar." See
Lieut.-Colonel Gudgeon, "The Tipua-Kura and other Manifestations
of the Spirit World," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol.
xv. no. 57 (March 1906), p. 49.
The particular superstition which lies at the root of taboo and has
incidentally exercised a beneficent influence by inspiring a respect for
law and morality appears to be a belief in the existence of ghosts and
their power to affect the fortunes of the living for good or evil. For
the ultimate sanction of the taboo, in other words, that which engaged
the people to observe its commandments, was a firm persuasion that any
breach of these commandments would surely and speedily be punished by an
_atua_ or ghost, who would afflict the sinner with a painful malady till
he died. From youth upwards the Maori was bred in the faith that the
souls of his dead ancestors, jealous of any infraction of the
traditionary rites, would commission some spirit of their kin to enter
into the transgressor's body and prey on a vital part. The visible signs
of this hidden and mysterious process they fancied to be the various
forms of disease. The mildest ailments were thought to be caused by the
spirits of those who had known the sufferer on earth, and who
accordingly were imagined to be more merciful and more reluctant 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 enough, the
spirit which preyed on the vitals of a sick man was supposed to assume
the form of a lizard; hence these animals, especially a beautiful green
species which the Maoris called _kakariki_, were regarded with fear and
horror by the natives.[125] Once when a Maori of Herculean thews and
sinews was inadvertently shown some green lizards preserved in a bottle
of spirits, his massive frame shrank back as from a mortal wound, and
his face betrayed signs of extreme horror. An aged chief in the room, on
learning what was the matter, cried out, "I shall die! I shall die!" and
crawled away on hands and knees; while the other man gallantly
interposed himself as a bulwark between the fugitive and the green gods
(_atuas_) in the bottle, shifting his position adroitly so as to screen
the chief till he was out of range of the deities.[126] An old man once
assured a missionary very seriously that in attending to a sick person
he had seen the god come out of the sufferer's mouth in the form of a
lizard, and that from the same moment the patient began to mend and was
soon restored to perfect health.[127]
[124] E. Shortland, _The Southern Districts of New Zealand_, pp.
30 _sq._, 294 _sq._; _id._, _Traditions and Superstitions of the
New Zealanders_, pp. 114 _sqq._; _id._, _Maori Religion and
Mythology_, 31 _sq._; W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, pp.
141 _sq._ Most malignant and dangerous of all appear to have
been thought the spirits of abortions or still-born infants. See
Elsdon Best, "The Lore of the _Whare-Kohanga_," _Journal of the
Polynesian Society_, vol. xv. no. 57 (March 1906), pp. 12-15;
_Reise der Oesterreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde,
Anthropologischer Theil, Dritte Abtheilung, Ethnographie_,
bearbeitet von Dr. Fr. Mueller (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 _sq._ As to disease
inflicted by ancestral spirits (_atuas_) for breaches of taboo,
see further J. L. Nicholas, _Narrative of a Voyage to New
Zealand_ (London, 1817), i. 272 _sq._, ii. 176 _sq._; E.
Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 105, "The breaking of
the _tapu_, if the crime does not become known, is, they
believe, punished by the _Atua_, who inflicts disease upon the
criminal; if discovered, it is punished by him whom it regards,
and often becomes the cause of war."
[125] Richard A. Cruise, _Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in
New Zealand_ (London, 1823), p. 320; J. Dumont d'Urville,
_Voyage autour du Monde et a la recherche de la Perouse,
Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 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. xiii. no. 4 (December
1904), p. 228. As to the superstitious veneration of lizards
among the peoples of the Malay-Polynesian stock, see G. A.
Wilken, _Verspreide Geschriften_ (The Hague, 1912), iv. 125
_sqq._
[126] G. F. Angas, _Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New
Zealand_, ii. 67.
[127] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 142.
Sec. 6. _Conclusion_
If now we attempt to sum up the effects which the belief in human
immortality exercised on the life of the Maoris we may perhaps conclude
that these effects were partly good and partly evil. On the one hand by
ascribing to the chiefs the special protection of the powerful spirits
of the dead, it invested the governing class with a degree of authority
to which on merely natural or rational grounds they could have laid no
claim; hence it tended to strengthen the respect for government and to
ensure the maintenance of law and order. Moreover, by lending a
supernatural sanction to the rights of private property among all
classes it further contributed to abolish one of the most fruitful
sources of discord and crime 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 daily life; and it erected
an almost insuperable barrier to the growth of science, and particularly
of that beneficent branch of science which has for its object the
alleviation of human suffering, since by concentrating the whole
attention of the people on a false and absurd theory of supernatural
agency it diverted them from that fruitful investigation of natural
causes which alone can strengthen and extend man's control over matter.
This was a heavy toll to pay for the advantages incidental to a belief
in immortality; and if we were asked to strike a balance between the
good and the evil which that belief entailed on the Maoris, we might
well hesitate to say to which side the scales of judgment should
incline.
CHAPTER II
THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE TONGANS
Sec. 1. _The Tonga or Friendly Islands_
The Tonga or Friendly Islands form an archipelago of about a hundred
small islands situated in the South Pacific, between 18 deg. and 22 deg. South
latitude and between 173 deg. and 176 deg. East longitude. The archipelago falls
into three groups of islands, which lie roughly north and south of each
other. The southern is the Tonga group, the central is the Haabai or
Haapai group, and the northern is the Vavau group. In the southern group
the principal islands are Tongataboo and Eua; in the central group,
Namuka and Lifuka (Lefooga); in the northern group, Vavau. The largest
island of the archipelago, Tongataboo, is about twenty-two miles long by
eight miles wide; next to it in importance are Vavau and Eua, and there
are seven or eight other islands not less than five miles in length. The
rest are mere islets. Most of the islands are surrounded by dangerous
coral reefs, and though the soil is deep and very fertile, there is a
great lack of flowing water; running streams are almost unknown. Most of
the islands consist of coral and are very low; the highest point of
Tongataboo is only about sixty feet above the level of the sea.[1]
However, some of the islands are lofty and of volcanic formation. When
Captain Cook visited the islands in 1773 and 1777 there was apparently
only one active volcano in the archipelago; it was situated in the small
island of Tufoa, which lies to the west of Namuka. Cook saw the island
smoking at the distance of ten leagues, and was told by the natives that
it had never ceased smoking in their memory, nor had they any tradition
of its inactivity.[2] In the hundred and fifty years which have elapsed
since Cook's time volcanic action has greatly increased in the
archipelago. A considerable eruption took place at Tufoa in 1885: the
small but lofty island of Kao (5000 feet high) has repeatedly been in
eruption: the once fertile and populous island of Amargura, or
Funua-lai, in about 18 deg. South latitude, was suddenly devastated in 1846
or 1847 by a terrific eruption, which reduced it to a huge mass of lava
and burnt sand, without a leaf or blade of grass of any kind. Warned by
violent earthquakes, which preceded the explosion, the inhabitants
escaped in time to Vavau. The roar of the volcano was heard one hundred
and thirty miles off; and an American ship sailed through a shower of
ashes, rolling like great volumes of smoke, for forty miles. For months
afterwards the glare of the tremendous fires was visible night after
night in the island of Vavau, situated forty miles away.[3] Another
dreadful eruption occurred on the 24th of June 1853, in Niua Fooeu, an
island about two hundred miles to the north-north-west of Funua-lai. The
entire island seems to be the circular ridge of an ancient and vast
volcano, of which the crater is occupied by a lake of clear calm water.
On the occasion in question the earth was rent in the centre of a native
village; the flames of a new volcano burst forth from the fissure,
belching a sea of molten lava, under which ten miles of country, once
covered with the richest verdure, have been encased in solid rock,
averaging from eight to fifteen feet in thickness. The lake boiled like
a cauldron, and long after the more powerful action of the volcano had
ceased, the waters of the lake were often rent by tongues of flame,
which shot up from them as well as from the clefts in the surrounding
precipices.[4] In the island of Late, lying to the west of Vavau, a new
volcano broke out with great violence in 1854; the roar of the volcano
was heard at Lifuka, fifty miles away; the immense pillar of smoke was
visible by day and the fire by night. The central portion of one side of
the mountain (about 2500 feet high) was completely blown out by the
explosion.[5]
[1] Horatio Hale, _U.S. Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and
Philology_ (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 4 _sq._; F. H. H.
Guillemard, _Australasia_, ii. (London, 1894) pp. 497, 499. As
to the scarcity of running water, see Captain James Cook,
_Voyages_ (London, 1809), iii. 206, v. 389. He was told that
there was a running stream on the high island of Kao. As to the
soil of Tongataboo, see Captain James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage
to the Southern Pacific Ocean_ (London, 1899), p. 280, "The soil
is everywhere prolific, and consists of a fine rich mould, upon
an average about fourteen or fifteen inches deep, free from
stones, except near the beach, where coral rocks appear above
the surface. Beneath this mould is a red loam four or five
inches thick; next is a very strong blue clay in small
quantities; and in some places has been found a black earth,
which emits a very fragrant smell resembling bergamot, but it
soon evaporates when exposed to the air."
[2] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 277. For descriptions of
the volcano see W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, Second Edition
(London, 1818), i. 240 _sq._; and especially Thomas West, _Ten
Years in South-Eastern Polynesia_ (London, 1865), pp. 89 _sqq._
Both these writers ascended the volcano.
[3] Thomas West, _op. cit._ pp. 79 _sqq._; J. E. Erskine,
_Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the Western Pacific_
(London, 1853), p. 120; F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, ii.
p. 497.
[4] T. West, _op. cit._ pp. 82 _sqq._; George Brown,
_Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910), pp. 4 _sq._
[5] T. West, _op. cit._ pp. 88 _sq._
But not only have new volcanoes appeared or long extinct volcanoes
resumed their activity within the last century in the existing islands,
new islands have been formed by volcanic action. One such island,
emitting volumes of fire, smoke, and steam, issued from the surface of
the sea, and was discovered by the missionary ship _John Wesley_ in
August 1857; its appearance had been heralded some years before by a
strange agitation of the sea and by fire and smoke ascending from the
water. This new volcanic island lies about midway between the two other
volcanic islands of Tufoa and Late.[6] A third new volcanic island seems
to have been formed to the south of Tufoa in 1886.[7] Another new island
was thrown up from the sea about the beginning of the twentieth century;
it was partly washed away again, but has again materially increased in
size.[8] It is noteworthy that the volcanoes, new or old, all occur in a
line running roughly north and south at a considerable distance to the
west of, but parallel to, the main body of the Tongan archipelago. They
clearly indicate the existence of submarine volcanic action on a great
scale. Even in the coralline islands traces of volcanic agency have come
to light in the shape of pumice-stones, which have been dug out of the
solid coral rock at considerable depths.[9] In the lofty island of Eua
an extensive dyke of basalt is found inland underlying the coral
formation.[10]
[6] T. West, _op. cit._ pp. 92-93.
[7] I infer this from the entry "Volcanic island, 1886," in Mr.
Guillemard's map of the Pacific Islands. He does not mention it
in the text (_Australasia_, ii. p. 497).
[8] George Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_, p. 6.
[9] T. West, _op. cit._ p. 94.
[10] George Brown, _op. cit._ p. 4.
These facts lend some countenance to the view that the whole archipelago
forms the summit or visible ridge of a long chain of submarine
volcanoes, and that the islands, even those of coralline formation, have
been raised to their present level by volcanic action.[11] That very
acute observer, Captain Cook, or one of the naturalists of the
expedition, noticed that in the highest parts of Tongataboo, which he
estimated roughly at a hundred feet above sea-level, he often met with
"the same coral rock, which is found at the shore, projecting above the
surface, and perforated and cut into all those inequalities which are
usually seen in rocks that lie within the wash of the tide."[12] Again,
on ascending the comparatively lofty island of Eua, Captain Cook
observes: "We were now about two or three hundred feet above the level
of the sea, and yet, even here, the coral was perforated into all the
holes and inequalities which usually diversify the surface of this
substance within the reach of the tide. Indeed, we found the same coral
till we began to approach the summits of the highest hills; and, it was
remarkable, that these were chiefly composed of a yellowish, soft, sandy
stone."[13] In the island of Vavau it was remarked by Captain Waldegrave
that the coral rock rises many feet above the present level of the sea,
and he adds: "The action of fire is visible on it, and we saw several
instances of its crystallisation."[14]
[11] T. West, _op. cit._ 95.
[12] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 344.
[13] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 381.
[14] Captain the Hon. W. Waldegrave, R.N., "Extracts from a
Private Journal," _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_,
iii. (1833) p. 193.
The view that even the coralline islands of the Tongan archipelago have
been elevated by volcanic agency is not necessarily inconsistent with
Darwin's theory that coral reefs are formed during periods of
subsidence, not of elevation;[15] for it is quite possible that, after
being raised ages ago by volcanic forces, these islands may be now
slowly subsiding, and that it has been during the period of subsidence
that they have become incrusted by coral reefs. Yet the occurrence of
coral rocks, bearing all the marks of marine action, at considerable
heights above the sea, appears indubitably to prove that such a general
subsidence has been in some places varied by at least a temporary
elevation.
[15] Charles Darwin, _Journal of Researches, etc., during the
Voyage of the "Beagle"_ (London, 1912), pp. 471 _sqq._; Sir
Charles Lyell, _Principles of Geology_, Twelfth Edition (London,
1875), ii. 602 _sqq._; T. H. Huxley, _Physiography_ (London,
1881), pp. 256 _sqq._
In thus postulating elevation by volcanic action, as well as subsidence,
to explain the formation of the Tongan islands I am glad to have the
support of a good observer, the late Rev. Dr. George Brown, who spent
the best years of his life in the Pacific, where his experience both of
the larger and the smaller islands was varied and extensive. He writes:
"I have seen islands composed of true coralline limestone, the cliffs of
which rise so perpendicularly from the blue ocean that the natives have
to ascend and descend by ladders in going from the ocean to the top, or
vice versa. A large steamer can go so close to some of these cliffs that
she could be moored alongside of them in calm weather. It is not at all
improbable, I think, that in these islands we have the two factors in
the formation of islands, viz. subsidence, during which these immense
cliffs were formed, and subsequent upheaval. This is the only way, I
think, in which we can account for these perpendicular cliffs in the
midst of deep blue ocean."[16]
[16] George Brown, _Melanesians and Polynesians_ (London, 1910),
pp. 13 _sq._
I have dwelt at what may seem undue length on the volcanic phenomena of
the Tonga islands because the occurrence of such phenomena in savage
lands has generally influenced the beliefs and customs of the natives,
quite apart from the possibility, which should always be borne in mind,
that man first obtained fire from an active volcano. But even if, as has
been suggested, the Tonga islands formed the starting-point from which
the Polynesian race spread over the islands of the Pacific,[17] it seems
very unlikely that the Polynesians first learned the use of fire when
they reached the Tongan archipelago. More probably they were
acquainted, not only with the use of fire, but with the mode of making
it long before they migrated from their original home in Southern Asia.
A people perfectly ignorant of that prime necessity could hardly have
made their way across such wide stretches of sea and land. But it is
quite possible that the myth which the Tongans, in common with many
other Polynesians, tell of the manner in which their ancestors procured
their first fire, was suggested to them by the spectacle of a volcano in
eruption. They say that the hero Maui Kijikiji, the Polynesian
Prometheus, first procured fire for men by descending into the bowels of
the earth and stealing it from his father, Maui Atalanga, who had kept
it there jealously concealed.[18]
[17] John Crawfurd, _Grammar and Dictionary of the Malay
Language_ (London, 1852), _Preliminary Dissertation_, p. 253,
quoted by Thomas West, _Ten Years in South-Central Polynesia_,
pp. 248 _sqq._ But the more usual view is that the
starting-point of the dispersal of the Polynesian race in the
Pacific was Samoa.
[18] Sarah S. Farmer, _Tonga and the Friendly Islands_ (London,
1855), pp. 134-137; Le P. Reiter, "Traditions Tonguiennes,"
_Anthropos_, xii.-xiii. (1917-1918), pp. 1026-1040; E. E.
Collcott, "Legends from Tonga," _Folk-lore_, xxxii. (1921) pp.
45-48. Miss Farmer probably obtained the story from the Rev.
John Thomas, who was a missionary in the islands for twenty-five
years (from 1826 to 1850). She acknowledges her obligations to
him for information on the religion of the natives (p. 125). For
the period of Mr. Thomas's residence in Tonga, see Miss Farmer's
book, p. 161. The story is told in closely similar forms in many
other islands of the Pacific. For some of the evidence see my
edition of Apollodorus, _The Library_, vol. ii. p. 331 _sqq._
Sec. 2. _The Tonga Islanders, their Character, Mode of Life, and
Government_
Physically the Tonga islanders are fine specimens of the Polynesian race
and generally impress travellers very favourably. Captain Cook, the
first to observe them closely, describes them as very strong and well
made, some of them really handsome, and many of them with truly European
features and genuine Roman noses.[19] At a later date Commodore Wilkes,
the commander of the United States Exploring Expedition, speaks of them
as "some of the finest specimens of the human race that can well be
imagined, surpassing in symmetry and grace those of all the other groups
we had visited"; and farther on he says: "A larger proportion of
fine-looking people is seldom to be seen, in any portion of the globe;
they are a shade lighter than any of the other islanders; their
countenances are generally of the European cast; they are tall and well
made, and their muscles are well developed."[20] Still later, in his
account of the voyage of the _Challenger_, Lord George Campbell
expressed himself even more warmly: "There are no people in the world,"
he says, "who strike one at first so much as these Friendly Islanders.
Their clear, light, copper-brown coloured skins, yellow and curly hair,
good-humoured, handsome faces, their _tout ensemble_, formed a novel and
splendid picture of the genus _homo_; and, as far as physique and
appearance go, they gave one certainly an impression of being a superior
race to ours."[21] A Catholic missionary observes that "the natives of
Tonga hardly differ from Europeans in stature, features, and colour;
they are a little sallower, which may be set down to the high
temperature of the climate. It is difficult to have a very fresh
complexion with thirty degrees of heat, Reaumur, as we have it during
four or five months of the year."[22] In appearance the Tonga islanders
closely resemble the Samoans, their neighbours on the north; some find
them a little lighter, but others somewhat darker in colour than the
Samoans.[23] According to the French explorer, Dumont d'Urville, who
passed about a month in Tongataboo in 1827, the Polynesian race in Tonga
exhibits less admixture with the swarthy Melanesian race than in Tahiti
and New Zealand, there being far fewer individuals of stunted stature,
flat noses, and frizzly hair among the Tongans than among the other
Polynesians.[24] Even among the Tongans the physical superiority of the
chiefs to the common people is said to be conspicuous; they are taller,
comelier, and lighter in colour than the lower orders. Some would
explain the difference by a difference in upbringing, noblemen being
more carefully nursed, better fed, and less exposed to the sun than
commoners;[25] but it is possible that they come of a different and
better stock.
[19] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 401 _sq._
[20] Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring
Expedition_, New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 10, 25.
[21] Quoted by F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, ii. p. 488.
[22] Jerome Grange, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_,
xvii. (1845) p. 8.
[23] Horatio Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition,
Ethnography and Philology_, pp. 10 _sq._; Charles Wilkes,
_Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition_, iii. 25;
J. E. Erskine, _Journal of a Cruise among the Islands of the
Western Pacific_, pp. 116, 155. The naturalist J. R. Forster
thought the Tongans darker than the Tahitians. See his
_Observations made during a Voyage round the World_ (London,
1778), p. 234.
[24] J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage de la corvette Astrolabe,
Histoire du Voyage_, iv. (Paris, 1832) p. 229.
[25] J. E. Erskine, _op. cit._ pp. 155 _sq._; Sarah S. Farmer,
_Tonga and the Friendly Islands_, p. 140.
Intellectually the Tongans are reported to "surpass all the other South
Sea islanders in their mental development, showing great skill in the
structure of their dwellings and the manufacture of their implements,
weapons, and dress."[26] They are bold navigators,[27] and Captain Cook
observes that "nothing can be a more demonstrative evidence of their
ingenuity than the construction and make of their canoes, which, in
point of neatness and workmanship, exceed everything of this kind we saw
in this sea."[28] However, the Tongans appear to have acquired much of
their skill in the art of building and rigging canoes through
intercourse with the Fijians, their neighbours to the west, who, though
their inferiors in seamanship and the spirit of marine adventure,
originally surpassed them in naval architecture.[29] Indeed we are told
that all the large Tongan canoes are built in Fiji, because the Tongan
islands do not furnish any timber fit for the purpose. Hence a number of
Tongans are constantly employed in the windward or eastern islands of
the Fiji group building these large canoes, a hundred feet or more in
length, a process which, it is said, lasts six or seven years.[30] The
debt which in this respect the Tongans owe to the Fijians was
necessarily unknown to Captain Cook, since he never reached the Fijian
islands and knew of them only by report, though he met and questioned a
few Fijians in Tongataboo.[31]
[26] F. H. H. Guillemard, _Australasia_, ii. pp. 498 _sq._
[27] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 264.
[28] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, iii. 197.
[29] W. Mariner, _The Tonga Islands_, ii. 263 _sqq._
[30] J. E. Erskine, _op. cit._ p. 132.
[31] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 396 _sq._
When Captain Cook visited the Tonga islands he found the land almost
everywhere in a high state of cultivation. He says that "cultivated
roots and fruits being their principal support, this requires their
constant attention to agriculture, which they pursue very diligently,
and seem to have brought almost to as great perfection as circumstances
will permit."[32] The plants which they chiefly cultivated and which
furnished them with their staple foods were yams and plantains. These
were disposed in plantations enclosed by neat fences of reeds about six
feet high and intersected by good smooth roads or lanes, which were
shaded from the scorching sun by fruit-trees.[33] Walking on one of
these roads Cook tells us, "I thought I was transported into the most
fertile plains in Europe. There was not an inch of waste ground; the
roads occupied no more space than was absolutely necessary; the fences
did not take up above four inches each; and even this was not wholly
lost, for in many places were planted some useful trees or plants. It
was everywhere the same; change of place altered not the scene. Nature,
assisted by a little art, nowhere appears in more splendour than at this
isle."[34] Interspersed among these plantations irregularly were
bread-fruit trees and coco-nut palms, of which the palms in particular,
raising their tufted heads in air above the sea of perpetual verdure,
formed a pleasing ornament of the landscape.[35] There were no towns or
villages; most of the houses were built in the plantations, generally
surrounded by trees or ornamental shrubs, whose fragrancy perfumed the
air.[36]
[32] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 411 _sq._
[33] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, iii. 184, 195, v. 274, 316,
357, 416.
[34] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, iii. 184.
[35] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 274, 357.
[36] _Id._ iii. 196.
When Captain Cook surveyed this rich and beautiful country, the islands
were and had long been at peace, so that the natives were able to devote
themselves without distraction to the labour of tilling the soil and
providing in other ways for the necessities of life. Unhappily shortly
after his visit to the islands wars broke out among the inhabitants and
continued to rage more or less intermittently for many years. Even the
introduction of Christianity in the early part of the nineteenth
century, far from assuaging the strife, only added bitterness to it by
furnishing a fresh pretext for hostilities, in which apparently the
Christians were sometimes the aggressors with the connivance or even the
encouragement of the missionaries.[37] In consequence cultivation was
neglected and large portions of land were allowed to lie waste.[38]
[37] This is affirmed by the Catholic missionary, Jerome Grange
(_Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xvii. (1845) pp. 15
_sqq._), and though he writes with a manifest prejudice against
his rivals the Protestant missionaries, his evidence is
confirmed by Commodore Wilkes, the commander of the United
States Exploring Expedition, who on his visit to Tongataboo
found the Christians and heathens about to go to war with each
other. He attempted to make peace between them, but in vain. The
heathen were ready to accept his overtures, but "it was evident
that King George and his advisers, and, indeed, the whole
Christian party, seemed to be desirous of continuing the war,
either to force the heathen to become Christians, or to carry it
on to extermination, which the number of their warriors made
them believe they had the power to effect. I felt, in addition,
that the missionaries were thwarting my exertions by permitting
warlike preparations during the pending of the negotiations."
See Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United States Exploring
Expedition_, iii. 7 _sqq._ (my quotation is from p. 16). The
story is told from the point of view of the Protestant
(Wesleyan) missionaries by Miss S. S. Farmer, _Tonga and The
Friendly Islands_, pp. 293 _sqq._
[38] John Williams, _Narrative of Missionary Enterprise in the
South Seas_ (London, 1838), p. 264; Charles Wilkes, _op. cit._
iii. 32 _sq._
Like all the Polynesians the natives of Tonga were ignorant of the
metals, and their only tools were made of stone, bone, shells, shark's
teeth, and rough fish-skins. They fashioned axes, or rather adzes, out
of a smooth black stone, which they procured from the volcanic island of
Tufoa; they used shells as knives; they constructed augers out of
shark's teeth, fixed on handles; and they made rasps of the rough skin
of a fish, fastened on flat pieces of wood. With such imperfect tools
they built their canoes and houses, reared the massive tombs of their
kings; and did all their other work.[39] The wonder is that with
implements so imperfect they could accomplish so much and raise
themselves to a comparatively high level among savages.
[39] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, iii. 199, v. 414 _sq._
Captain Cook says that the only piece of iron he found among the
Tongans was a small broad awl, which had been made of a nail.
But this nail they must have procured either from a former
navigator, perhaps Tasman, or from a wreck.
A feature of the Tongan character in which the islanders evinced their
superiority to most of the Polynesians was their regard for women. In
most savage tribes which practise agriculture the labour of tilling the
fields falls in great measure on the female sex, but it was not so in
Tonga. There the women never tilled the ground nor did any hard work,
though they occupied themselves with the manufacture of bark-cloth,
mats, and other articles of domestic use. Natives of Fiji, Samoa, and
Hawaii, who resided in Tonga, used to remark on the easy lives led by
the Tongan women, and remonstrated with the men on the subject, saying
that as men underwent hardships and dangers in war and other masculine
pursuits, so women ought to be made to labour in the fields and to toil
for their living. But the Tongan men said that "it is not _gnale fafine_
(consistent with the feminine character) to let them do hard work; women
ought only to do what is feminine: who loves a masculine woman? besides,
men are stronger, and therefore it is but proper that they should do the
hard labour."[40]
[40] W. Mariner, _The Tonga Islands_, ii. 287. Compare _id._ ii.
124, note *; Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 410 _sq._
Further, it is to the credit of the Tongans that, unlike many other
Polynesians, they were not generally cannibals, and indeed for the most
part held in abhorrence the practice of eating human bodies. Still young
warriors occasionally devoured the corpses of their enemies in imitation
of the Fijians, imagining that in so doing they manifested a fierce,
warlike, and manly spirit. On one occasion, returning from such a
repast, they were shunned by every one, especially by the women, who
upbraided them, saying, "Away! you are a man-eater."[41]
[41] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 194; compare _id._ i.
317-320.
The government of the Tongan islanders was eminently monarchical and
aristocratic. A strict subordination of ranks was established which has
been aptly compared to the feudal system. At the head of the social
edifice were two chiefs who bore some resemblance to the Emperor and the
Pope of mediaeval Europe, the one being the civil and military head of
the State, while the other embodied the supreme spiritual power.
Nominally the spiritual chief, called the Tooitonga, ranked above the
civil chief or king, who paid him formal homage; but, as usually happens
in such cases, the real government was in the hands of the secular
rather than of the religious monarch. The Tooitonga was acknowledged to
be descended from one of the chief gods; he is spoken of by Mariner, our
principal authority, as a divine chief of the highest rank, and he is
said to have enjoyed divine honours. The first-fruits of the year were
offered to him, and it was supposed that if this ceremony were
neglected, the vengeance of the gods would fall in a signal manner upon
the people. Yet he had no power or authority in matters pertaining to
the civil king.[42] The existence of such a double kingship, with a
corresponding distribution of temporal and spiritual functions, is not
uncommon in more advanced societies; its occurrence among a people so
comparatively low in the scale of culture as the Tongans is remarkable.
[42] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 424 _sqq._; W. Mariner,
_Tonga Islands_, ii. 74 _sqq._, 132 _sqq._; J. Dumont d'Urville,
_Voyage de l'Astrolabe, Histoire du Voyage_, iv. (Paris, 1832)
pp. 90 _sq._, "_Si tout etait suivant l'ordre legal a
Tonga-Tabou, on verrait d'abord a la tete de la societe le
toui-tonga qui est le veritable souverain nominal des iles
Tonga, et qui jouit meme des honneurs divins_."
Below the two great chiefs or kings were many subordinate chiefs, and
below them again the social ranks descended in a succession of sharply
marked gradations to the peasants, who tilled the ground, and whose
lives and property were entirely at the mercy of the chiefs.[43] Yet the
social system as a whole seems to have worked well and smoothly. "It
does not, indeed, appear," says Captain Cook, "that any of the most
civilised nations have ever exceeded this people, in the great order
observed on all occasions; in ready compliance with the commands of
their chiefs; and in the harmony that subsists throughout all ranks, and
unites them, as if they were all one man, informed with, and directed
by, the same principle."[44] According to the American ethnographer,
Horatio Hale, the mass of the people in the Tonga islands had no
political rights, and their condition in that respect was much inferior
to that of commoners in the Samoan islands, since in Tonga the
government was much stronger and better organized, as he puts it, for
the purpose of oppression. On the other hand, he admitted that
government in Tonga was milder than in Tahiti, and infinitely preferable
to the debasing despotism which prevailed in Hawaii or the Sandwich
Islands.[45]
[43] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 424 _sq._, 429 _sq._; W.
Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 83 _sqq._
[44] Captain James Cook, _Voyages_, v. 426.
[45] Horatio Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition,
Ethnography and Philology_, p. 32.
Sec. 3. _The Tongan Religion: its General Principles_
For our knowledge of the religion and the social condition of the
Tongans before they came under European influence, we are indebted
chiefly to an English sailor, William Mariner, who lived as a captive
among them for about four years, from 1806 to 1810.[46] His account of
the natives, carefully elicited from him and published by a medical
doctor, Mr. John Martin, M.D., is one of the most valuable descriptions
of a savage people which we possess. Mariner was a good observer and
endowed with an excellent memory, which enabled him to retain and record
his experiences after his return to England. He spoke the Tongan
language, and he was a special favourite of the two Tongan kings, named
Finow, who reigned successively in Tonga during his residence in the
islands. The kings befriended and protected him, so that he had the best
opportunities for becoming acquainted with the customs and beliefs of
the people. His observations have been confirmed from independent
sources, and we have every reason to regard them as trustworthy. So far
as we can judge, they are a simple record of facts, unbiassed by theory
or prejudice. In the following notice of the Tongan religion and
doctrine of the human soul I shall draw chiefly on the evidence of
Mariner.
[46] Mariner was captured by the Tongans on December 1, 1806,
and he escaped from the islands in 1810, apparently in November,
but the exact date of his escape is not given. See W. Mariner,
_Tonga Islands_, i. 43, ii. 15 _sqq._, 68, 69.
According to him, the religion of the Tonga islanders rests, or rather
used to rest, on the following notions.[47]
[47] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 97 _sqq._
They believed that there are _hotooas_,[48] gods, or superior beings,
who have the power of dispensing good and evil to mankind, according to
their merit, but of whose origin the Tongans formed no idea, rather
supposing them to be eternal.
[48] The word is commonly spelled _atua_ in the Polynesian
languages. See E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative
Dictionary_ (Wellington, N.Z. 1891), pp. 30 _sq._, who gives
_otua_ as the Tongan form.
They believed that there are other _hotooas_ or gods, who are the souls
of all deceased nobles and _matabooles_, that is, the companions,
ministers, and counsellors of the chiefs, who form a sort of inferior
nobility.[49] The souls of all these dead men were held to possess a
power of dispensing good and evil to mankind like the power of the
superior gods, but in a lesser degree.
[49] As to the _matabooles_ see W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii.
84 _sqq._
They believed that there are besides several _hotooa pow_, or
mischievous gods, who never dispense good, but only petty evils and
troubles, not as a punishment, but indiscriminately to anybody, from a
purely mischievous disposition.
They believed that all these superior beings, although they may perhaps
have had a beginning, will have no end.
They believed that the world also is of uncertain origin, having
coexisted with the gods. The sky, which they regard as solid, the
heavenly bodies, and the ocean were in being before the habitable earth.
The Tonga islands were drawn up out of the depth of the sea by the god
Tangaloa one day when he was fishing with a line and a hook.
They believed that mankind, according to a partial tradition, came
originally from Bolotoo, the chief residence of the gods, a fabulous
island situated to the north-west of the Tongan archipelago. The first
men and women consisted of two brothers, with their wives and
attendants. They were commanded by the god Tangaloa to take up their
abode in the Tonga islands, but of their origin or creation the Tongans
professed to know nothing.[50]
[50] According to a later account, "on Ata were born the first
men, three in number, formed from a worm bred by a rotten plant,
whose seed was brought by Tangaloa from heaven. These three were
afterwards provided by the Maui with wives from the Underworld."
See E. E. V. Collocot, "Notes on Tongan Religion," _Journal of
the Polynesian Society_, xxx. (1921) p. 154.
They believed that all human evil was inflicted by the gods upon mankind
on account of some neglect of religious duty, whether the neglect is the
fault of the sufferers or of the chief whom they serve. In like manner
the Tongans apparently referred all human good to the gods, regarding it
as a reward bestowed by the divine beings on men who punctually
discharged the offices of religion.[51]
[51] So apparently we must interpret Mariner's brief statement
"and the contrary of good" (_Tonga Islands_, ii. 98).
They believed that nobles had souls, which existed after death in
Bolotoo, not according to their moral merit, but according to their rank
in this world; these had power like that of the original gods, but less
in degree. The _matabooles_, or ministers of the nobles, also went after
death to Bolotoo, where they existed as _matabooles_, or ministers of
the gods, but they had not, like the gods and the souls of dead
noblemen, the power of inspiring the priests with superhuman knowledge.
Some thought that the _mooas_, who ranked next below the _matabooles_ in
the social hierarchy, also went after death to Bolotoo; but this was a
matter of great doubt. As for the _tooas_ or commoners, who formed the
lowest rung in the social ladder, they had either no souls at all or
only such as dissolved with the body after death, which consequently
ended their sentient existence.
They believed that the human soul during life is not an essence distinct
from the body, but only the more ethereal part of the corporeal frame,
and that the moment after death it exists in Bolotoo with the form and
likeness of the body which it had on earth.
They believed that the primitive gods and deceased nobles sometimes
appear visibly to mankind to warn or to afford comfort and advice; and
that the primitive gods also sometimes come into the living bodies of
lizards, porpoises, and a species of water snake, hence these animals
are much respected. When the gods thus entered into the bodies of
porpoises, it was for the sake of safeguarding canoes or for other
beneficent purposes.
They believed that the two personages in the Tonga islands known by the
titles of Tooitonga and Veachi were descendants in a right line from two
chief gods, and that all respect and veneration are therefore due to
them.
They believed that some persons are favoured with the inspiration of the
gods, and that while the inspiration lasts the god actually exists in
the body of the inspired person or priest, who is then capable of
prophesying.
They believe that human merit or virtue consists chiefly in paying
respect to the gods, nobles, and aged persons; in defending one's
hereditary rights; in honour, justice, patriotism, friendship, meekness,
modesty, fidelity of married women, parental and filial love,
observance of all religious ceremonies, patience in suffering,
forbearance of temper, and so on.
They believed that all rewards for virtue or punishments for vice happen
to men in this world only, and come immediately from the gods.
They believed that several acts which civilised nations regard as crimes
are, under certain circumstances, matters of indifference. Such acts
included the taking of revenge on an enemy and the killing of a servant
who had given provocation, or indeed the killing of anybody else, always
provided that the victim were not a very superior chief or noble.
Further, among indifferent acts was reckoned rape, unless it were
committed on a married woman or on one whom the offender was bound to
respect on the score of her superior rank. Finally, the list of venial
offences included theft, unless the stolen object were consecrated
property; for in that case the action became sacrilege and was, as we
shall see presently, a very serious crime.
They believed that omens are the direct intimations of the future
vouchsafed by the gods to men. "Charms or superstitious ceremonies to
bring evil upon any one are considered for the most part infallible, as
being generally effective means to dispose the gods to accord with the
curse or evil wish of the malevolent invoker; to perform these charms is
considered cowardly and unmanly, but does not constitute a crime."[52]
One such charm consisted in hiding on a grave (_fytoca_) some portion of
the wearing apparel of an inferior relation of the deceased. The person
whose garment was so hidden was believed to sicken and die. An equally
effectual way of working the charm and ensuring the death of the victim
was to bury the garment in the house consecrated to the tutelary god of
the family. But when a grave was made use of for the malignant purpose,
it was thought essential that the deceased should be of a rank superior
to that of the person against whom the charm was directed; otherwise it
was supposed that the charm would have no effect.[53] In either case the
fatal result was clearly held to be brought about by the power of the
ghost or of the god, who used the garment as an instrument for putting
the charm in operation. These charms or superstitious ceremonies are
what we should now call magical rites, and they were apparently supposed
to effect their purpose indirectly by constraining the gods to carry out
the malevolent intention of the magician. If I am right in so
interpreting them, we seem driven to conclude that in Tonga magic was
supposed to be ineffectual without the co-operation of the gods,
although its power to compel them was deemed for the most part
irresistible. Even so its assumed dependence on the consent, albeit the
reluctant consent, of the deities implies a certain decadence of magic
and a growing predominance of religion. Moreover, the moral reprehension
of such practices for the injury of enemies is another sign that among
the Tongans magic was being relegated to that position of a black art
which it generally occupies among more civilised peoples. Be that as it
may, certain it is that we hear extremely little about the practice of
magic among the Tongans.
[52] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 101.
[53] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ i. 424, note *.
Sec. 4. _The Primary or Non-human Gods_
Such are, or rather used to be, the principal articles of the old Tongan
creed. We may now examine some of them a little more at large. But first
we may observe that on this showing the Tongans were an eminently
religious people. They traced all the good and ill in human affairs to
the direct intervention of the gods, who rewarded or punished mankind
for their deeds in this life, bestowing the reward or inflicting the
punishment in the present world and not deferring either to a distant
and more or less uncertain future in a world beyond the grave. Thus with
the Tongans the fear of the gods was a powerful incentive to lead a
virtuous life; morality was placed under the immediate guardianship of
the deities. It is true that according to their notions morality
consisted largely in the performance of religious ceremonies, but it was
by no means limited to a simple observance of the prescribed rites; for
we have seen that their conception of a virtuous life included
compliance with the dictates of justice, modesty, and friendship, the
fidelity of wives to their husbands, the mutual affection of parents and
children, patience in suffering, and other modes of conduct which we too
should not hesitate to rank among the virtues.
When we consider the nature of the Tongan gods, we perceive that they
are sharply discriminated into two classes, namely, the primitive and
superior gods on the one side and the secondary and inferior gods on the
other side. The primitive and superior gods are those who have always
been gods and whose origin and beginning are unknown; the secondary and
inferior gods are the souls of dead men, who consequently have not
always been gods, because they were human beings before death elevated
them to the rank of deities. The distinction between these two classes
of gods is highly important, not merely for Tongan religion in
particular, but for the history of religion in general. For whatever we
may think of Euhemerism as a universal explanation of the gods, there
can be no doubt that in many lands the ranks of the celestial hierarchy
have been largely recruited by the ghosts of men of flesh and blood. But
there appears to be a general tendency to allow the origin of the human
gods to fall into the background and to confuse them with the true
original deities, who from the beginning have always been deities and
nothing else. The tendency may sometimes be accentuated by a deliberate
desire to cast a veil over the humble birth and modest beginning of
these now worshipful beings; but probably the obliteration of the
distinction between the two classes of divinities is usually a simple
result of oblivion and the lapse of time. Once a man is dead, his
figure, which bulked so large and so clear to his contemporaries, begins
to fade and melt away into something vague and indistinct, until, if he
was a person of no importance, he is totally forgotten; or, if he was
one whose actions or thoughts deeply influenced his fellows for good or
evil, his memory lingers in after generations, growing ever dimmer and
it may be looming ever larger through the long vista of the ages, as the
evening mist appears to magnify the orb of the descending sun. Thus
naturally and insensibly, as time goes on, our mortal nature fades or
brightens into the immortal and divine.
As our subject is the belief in immortality and the worship of the dead,
we are not directly concerned with the original Tongan deities who were
believed never to have been men. But since their functions and worship
appear to have been in certain respects closely analogous to those of
the inferior deities, the souls of the dead, some notice of them may not
be out of place, if it helps to a fuller understanding of what we may
call the human gods. Besides, we must always bear in mind that some at
least of the so-called original gods may have been men, whose history
and humanity had been forgotten. We can hardly doubt that the celestial
hierarchy has often been recruited by the souls of the dead.
The original and superior gods, Mariner tells us, were thought to be
rather numerous, perhaps about three hundred all told; but the names of
very few of them were known, and even those few were familiar only to
some of the chiefs and their ministers, the _matabooles_; "for it may
easily be supposed," says Mariner, "that, where no written records are
kept, only those (gods) whose attributes particularly concern the
affairs of this world should be much talked of; as to the rest, they
are, for the most part, merely tutelar gods to particular private
families, and having nothing in their history at all interesting, are
scarcely known to anybody else."[54]
[54] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 104.
Among these original and superior deities was Tali-y-Toobo, the patron
god of the civil king and his family. He was the god of war and was
consequently always invoked in time of war by the king's family; in time
of peace prayers were sometimes offered to him for the general good of
the nation as well as for the particular interest and welfare of the
royal house. He had no priest, unless it was the king himself, who was
occasionally inspired by him; but sometimes a whole reign would pass
without the king being once favoured with the divine afflatus.[55]
[55] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 105.
Another god was Tooi fooa Bolotoo, whose name means "Chief of all
Bolotoo." From this it might be supposed that he was the greatest god in
Bolotoo, the home of the gods and of the deified spirits of men; but in
fact he was regarded as inferior to the war god, and the natives could
give no explanation of his high-sounding title. He was the god of rank
in society, and as such he was often invoked by the heads of great
families on occasion of sickness or other trouble. He had several
priests, whom he occasionally inspired.[56]
[56] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 105 _sq._
Another great god was Toobo Toty, whose name signifies "Toobo the
mariner." He was the god of voyages, and in that capacity was invoked by
chiefs or anybody else at sea; for his principal function was to
preserve canoes from accidents. Without being himself the god of wind,
he had great influence with that deity, and was thus enabled no doubt to
save many who were in peril on the great deep.[57]
[57] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 106 _sq._
Another god was Alo Alo, whose name means "to fan." He was the god of
wind and weather, rain, harvest, and vegetation in general. When the
weather was seasonable, he was usually invoked about once a month to
induce him to keep on his good behaviour; but when the weather was
unseasonable, or the islands were swept by destructive storms of wind
and rain, the prayers to him were repeated daily. But he was not
supposed to wield the thunder and lightning, "of which, indeed," says
Mariner, "there is no god acknowledged among them, as this phenomenon is
never recollected to have done any mischief of consequence."[58] From
this it would appear that where no harm was done, the Tongans found it
needless to suppose the existence of a deity; they discovered the hand
of a god only in the working of evil; fear was the mainspring of their
religion. In boisterous weather at sea Alo Alo was not invoked; he had
then to make room for the superior god, Toobo Toty, the protector of
canoes, who with other sea gods always received the homage of
storm-tossed mariners. However, Alo Alo, the weather god, came to his
own when the yams were approaching maturity in the early part of
November. For then offerings of yams, coco-nuts, and other vegetable
products were offered to him in particular, as well as to all the other
gods in general, for the purpose of ensuring a continuation of
favourable weather and consequent fertility. The offering was
accompanied by prayers to Alo Alo and the other gods, beseeching them to
extend their bounty and make the land fruitful. Wrestling and boxing
matches formed part of the ceremony, which was repeated eight times at
intervals of ten days. The time for the rite was fixed by the priest of
Alo Alo, and a curious feature of the ceremony was the presence of a
girl of noble family, some seven or eight years old, who represented the
wife of Alo Alo and resided in his consecrated house during the eighty
days that the festal season lasted.[59]
[58] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 108.
[59] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 205-208; compare _id._ 7,
note *, 108.
Another god named Moooi was believed to support the earth on his
prostrate body. In person he was bigger than any other of the gods; but
he never inspired anybody, and had no house dedicated to his service.
Indeed, it was supposed that this Atlas of the Pacific never budged from
his painful and burdensome post beneath the earth. Only when he felt
more than usually uneasy, he tried to turn himself about under his heavy
load; and the movement was felt as an earthquake by the Tongans, who
endeavoured to make him lie still by shouting and beating the ground
with sticks.[60] Similar attempts to stop an earthquake are common in
many parts of the world.[61]
[60] W. Mariner, _op. cit._ ii. 112 _sq._ Compare Captain James
Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_
(London, 1799), pp. 277 _sq._ Moooi is the Polynesian god or
hero whose name is usually spelled Maui. See Horatio Hale,
_United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology_,
p. 23; E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_,
pp. 233 _sqq._ _s.v._ "Maui."
[61] _Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, i. 197 _sqq._
Tangaloa was the god of artificers and the arts. He had several priests,
who in Mariner's time were all carpenters. It was he who was said to
have brought up the Tonga islands from the bottom of the sea at the end
of his fishing line;[62] though in some accounts of Tongan tradition
this feat is attributed to Maui.[63] The very hook on which he hauled
up the islands was said to be preserved in Tonga down to about thirty
years before Mariner's time. It was in the possession of the divine
chief Tooitonga; but unfortunately, his house catching fire, the basket
in which the precious hook was kept perished with its contents in the
flames. When Mariner asked Tooitonga what sort of hook it was, the chief
told him that it was made of tortoise-shell, strengthened with a piece
of whalebone, and that it measured six or seven inches from the curve to
the point where the line was attached, and an inch and a half between
the barb and the stem. Mariner objected that such a hook could hardly
have been strong enough to support the whole weight of the Tonga
islands; but the chief replied that it was a god's hook and therefore
could not break. The hole in the rock in which the divine hook caught on
the memorable occasion was shown down to Mariner's time in the island of
Hoonga. It was an aperture about two feet square.[64]
[62] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii. 109, 114 _sq._; Horatio
Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and
Philology_, pp. 24 _sq._
[63] Jerome Grange, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_,
xvii. (1845) p. 11; Charles Wilkes, _Narrative of the United
States Exploring Expedition_, iii. 23; Sarah S. Farmer, _Tonga
and the Friendly Islands_, p. 133. According to this last writer
it was only the low islands that were fished up by Maui; the
high islands were thrown down from the sky by the god Hikuleo.
[64] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 272, ii. 114 _sq._ The
Catholic missionary Jerome Grange was told that the hook in
question existed down to his time (1843), but that only the king
might see it, since it was certain death to anybody else to look
on it. See _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xvii. (1845)
p. 11.
Sec. 5. _The Temples of the Gods_
Some of the primitive gods had houses dedicated to them. These sacred
houses or temples, as we may call them, were built in the style of
ordinary dwellings; but generally more than ordinary care was taken both
in constructing them and in keeping them in good order, decorating their
enclosures with flowers, and so on. About twenty of the gods had houses
thus consecrated to them; some of them had five or six houses, some only
one or two. For example, Tali-y-Toobo, the patron god of the royal
family, had four houses dedicated to him in the island of Vavau, two in
the island of Lefooga (Lifuka), and two or three others of smaller
importance elsewhere.[65] Another patron god of the royal family,
called Alai Valoo, had a large consecrated enclosure in the island of
Ofoo; he had also at least one priest and was very frequently consulted
in behalf of sick persons.[66]
[65] W. Mariner, _Tonga Island_, ii. 104 _sq._
[66] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, ii, 107 _sq._
To desecrate any of these holy houses or enclosures was a most serious
offence. When Mariner was in the islands it happened that two boys, who
had belonged to the crew of his ship, were detected in the act of
stealing a bale of bark-cloth from a consecrated house. If they had been
natives, they would instantly have been punished with death; but the
chiefs, taking into consideration the youth and inexperience of the
offenders, who were foreigners and ignorant of native customs, decided
that for that time the crime might be overlooked. Nevertheless, to
appease the anger of the god, to whom the house was consecrated, it was
deemed necessary to address him humbly on the subject. Accordingly his
priest, followed by chiefs and their ministers (_matabooles_), all
dressed in mats with leaves of the _ifi_ tree[67] round their necks in
token of humility and sorrow, went in solemn procession to the house;
they sat down before it, and the priest addressed the divinity to the
following purport: "Here you see the chiefs and _matabooles_ that have
come to thee, hoping that thou wilt be merciful: the boys are young, and
being foreigners, are not so well acquainted with our customs, and did
not reflect upon the greatness of the crime: we pray thee, therefore,
not to punish the people for the sins of these thoughtless youths: we
have spared them, and hope that thou wilt be merciful and spare us." The
priest then rose up, and they all retired in the same way they had come.
The chiefs, and particularly the king, severely reprimanded the boys,
endeavouring to impress on their minds the enormity of their offence,
and assuring them that they owed their lives only to their presumed
ignorance of the heinousness of the crime.[68]
[67] The _ifi_ tree, of which the leaves were used by the
Tongans in many religious ceremonies, is a species of chestnut
(_Inocarpus edulis_) which grows in Indonesia, but is thought to
be a native of America. It is supposed that the Polynesians
brought the seeds of this tree with them into the Pacific, where
it is said to be a cultivated plant. See S. Percy Smith,
_Hawaiki, the Original Home of the Maori_ (Christchurch, etc.,
New Zealand, 1910), p. 146. To wear a wreath of the leaves round
the neck, and to sit with the head bowed down, constituted the
strongest possible expression of humility and entreaty. See E.
E. V. Collocot, "Notes on Tongan Religion," _Journal of the
Polynesian Society_, xxx. (1921) p. 159.
[68] W. Mariner, _Tonga Islands_, i. 163 _sq._
Another case of sacrilege, which occurred in Mariner's time, was
attended with more tragic consequences. He tells us that consecrated
places might not be the scene of war, and that it would be highly
sacrilegious to attack an enemy or to spill his blood within their
confines. On one occasion, while Mariner was in the islands, four men,
pursued by their enemies, fled for refuge to a consecrated enclosure,
where they would have been perfectly safe. One of them was in the act of
scrambling over the reed fence, and had got a leg over it, when he was
overtaken by a foe, who struck him such a furious blow on the head that
he fell dead within the hallowed ground. Conscience-stricken, the slayer
fled to his canoe, followed by his men; and on arriving at the fortress
where the king was stationed he made a clean breast of his crime,
alleging in excuse that it had been committed in hot blood when he had
lost all self-command. The king immediately ordered kava to be taken to
the priest of his own tutelary god, that the divinity might be consulted
as to what atonement was proper to be made for so heinous a sacrilege.
Under the double inspiration of kava and the deity, the priest made
answer that it was necessary a child should be strangled to appease the
anger of the gods. The chiefs then held a consultation and determined to
sacrifice the child of a high chief named Toobo Toa. The child was about
two years old and had been born to him by a female attendant. On such
occasions the child of a male chief by a female attendant was always
chosen for the victim first, because, as a child of a chief, he was a
worthier victim, and second, because, as a child of a female attendant,
he was not himself a chief; for nobility being traced in the female line
only those children were reckoned chiefs whose mothers were
chieftainesses; the rank of the father, whether noble or not, did not
affect the rank of his offspring. On this occasion the father of the
child was present at the consultation and consented to the sacrifice.
The mother, fearing the decision, had concealed the child, but it was
found by one of the searchers, who took it up in his arms, while it
smiled with delight at being noticed. The mother tried to follow but
was held back; and on hearing her voice the child began to cry. But on
reaching the place of execution it was pleased and
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