The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3)

The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3)
James Frazer

James George Frazer

The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3) / The Belief Among the Polynesians

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.

CHAPTER I

THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE MAORIS

§ 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 - 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.] 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 - J. Deniker, The Races of Man (London, 1900), pp. 154, 501; British Museum, Handbook to the Ethnographical Collections (1910), p. 147.] and even so simple an invention as that of bows and arrows for use in war had not been thought of.[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.] 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.

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 - 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.] 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 - 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.] 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 - J. Deniker, The Races of Man, pp. 482 sqq.] 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 - 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 - 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).] 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.

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 - 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.] 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.

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 - Horatio Hale, United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 4 sqq.] 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.

§ 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 - 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).] 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 - E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, p. 33.] 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 - 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."] However, the question is one that hardly admits of a positive answer.

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 - 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."] They received from the Maoris the name of Maruiwi,[15 - Elsdon Best, "The Peopling of New Zealand," Man, xiv. (1914) pp. 73 sq.] 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 - (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 - 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.] "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 - Captain James Cook, Voyages (London, 1809), ii. 50.] They understood the arts of irrigating their gardens[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).] 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 - E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 202 sq.] 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 - 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.] The Maoris also built large and magnificently adorned canoes,[22 - Captain James Cook, Voyages, ii. 47 sq.; W. Yate, op. cit. pp. 161 sqq.] 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 - 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.] 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 - R. Taylor, op. cit. p. 496; A. R. Wallace, Australasia (London, 1913), pp. 442 sq.] even birds they could not shoot, because they had no bows and arrows to shoot them with,[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.] but they made some amends by catching them in ingeniously constructed snares.[26 - E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, pp. 212 sqq.; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, pp. 442 sq.] They caught fish both with nets, some of which were of enormous size, and with hooks made of bone or shell.[27 - Captain James Cook, Voyages, i. 49 sq.; W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, p. 160.] They displayed great skill and infinite patience in fashioning, sharpening, and polishing their stone implements and weapons.[28 - Captain James Cook, Voyages, ii. 49; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 4.] 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 - 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.] 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.

§ 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 - Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), pp. 177 sqq., 189 sqq.] 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 - E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, pp. 591 sq., s. v. "wairua."] 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 - Elsdon Best, op. cit. p. 189.] appears primarily to mean "wind,"[33 - E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 52, s. v. "hau"; Elsdon Best, op. cit. p. 190.] 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 - J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde et à la recherche de la Pérouse, Histoire du Voyage (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 558 sq.] 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 - 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 - Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), pp. 177 sq.] 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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), p. 181.] 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 - 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.] 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 - 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 - Elsdon Best, "Maori Medical Lore," Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. xiii. no. 4 (December 1904), p. 225.] 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 - 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.] 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 - 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 - 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 - 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.] 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 - 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 à la recherche de la Pérouse, 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).] 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 - Sir George Grey, Polynesian Mythology (London, 1855), p. 32.] 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."

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 - 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-wānanga, 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."]

§ 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 - W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, pp. 135 sqq.; J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde et à la recherche de la Pérouse, Histoire du Voyage (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 541 sq.; Servant, "Notice sur la Nouvelle-Zélande," 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 - J. Dumont d'Urville, op. cit. ii. 541.] 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 - J. Dumont d'Urville, op. cit. ii. 543 sq.; W. Yate, op. cit. p. 137; Servant, "Notice sur la Nouvelle-Zélande," 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 - W. Yate, An Account of New Zealand, pp. 137-139; Servant, "Notice sur la Nouvelle-Zélande," 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."] 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 - J. Dumont d'Urville, op. cit. ii. 543, 545.]

Not uncommonly the bones of the dead, instead of being preserved, were burned.[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."] 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 - 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 - 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.] Apparently the spirits of the dead were thought able to quicken the fruits of the earth.

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 - J. Dumont d'Urville, op. cit. ii. 542; G. F. Angas, op. cit. ii. 71; R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui, p. 220.] 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 - J. Dumont d'Urville, l. c.] 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 - 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 - 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.] 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.

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 - 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."] 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.

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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary, p. 342, s. v. "Po."] 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 - 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.] 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.

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 - 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 (#FNanchor_59_59).]

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 - 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 - 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.]