ANCIENT MAORI " HISTORY."* MAORX "history" rests entirely on traditions,
not printed, but handed down orally from generation to generation, with much ceremony and solemnity, in former times by the priests. But in these latter days, even those who had embraced Christianity would not repeat the whole of their transmitted lore. Four different persons, after reciting an account of their tribal history, refused to fill up gaps, one of them using these sug- gestive words:—" Our gods are not annihilated—they are only silenced by the superior influence of the European God. We are still in the power of our Maori' gods, and if we divulge the sacred lore of our ancestors, the gods will punish us with sudden death." Perhaps not much is lost except to the students of comparative mythology, and enough is left to preserve a vague, cloudy, and sometimes contradictory version concerning Maori notions of the origin of things celestial and terrestrial. Mr. White collected many of the traditions, and the names of his native informants recall, he says, " the delightful hours spread over the last half-century, when their possessors, most of whom are no longer in the flesh, sitting under a shady tree, on the outskirts of a forest, and remote from the abodes of men, rehearsed the sacred lore of their race, and in solemn dread slowly repeated the sacred incantations, or performed the ceremonies of ..the Niu, Tohi-taua, Awa- moana, Kitao, Pihe, and other rites, as they were taught by those of past generations." The long sentence presents a suggestive picture of the eager inquirer learning from the men of a fading race their weird myths, savage superstitions, and sanguinary " history," which, at the best, is a series of personal adventures. The curiosity of the book is that the original Maori is printed together with the English trans- lation; so that the volumes would certainly be very useful to a student of the language, especially when the promised dictionary, to which constant reference is made, is added to the four volumes ; and, probably, any " ethnological investi- gator" who may try to track the emigrants to New Zealand from their island homes somewhere in the Pacific, may find here an aid to his researches.
What we gather from the narratives, which do not always accord one with another, is that the Maori came to the North Island—he says forty-six generations, or about twelve hundred years ago—in large war-canoes, propelled by oars " seventy " of a side. The causes of the migration were quarrels about " a woman " and "land." Tradition has preserved the names of these canoes and those of the leading chiefs, from whom ex- isting Maori gentlemen profess and are proud to descend. The inherent respect for rank and descent is shown nowhere, hardly even in India, in greater force. The emigrants seem to have struck on the east end of the North Island, to have gone to the West Coast through Auckland Harbour, which they reached by skidding their vessels over the strip of land in- tervening between the Gulfs of Hauraki and Manukau ; but the main stream appear to have flowed down the east side of the island by land. We may infer that some kind of natives were found there by the invaders, but their existence is shadowy in these records. The new-comers brought their kum,ara, or food of different kinds, with them ; and one of the most curious chapters is a rhetorical contest between living Maori chiefs, among whom is a " Major " and a " Reverend," respecting the canoe or canoes in which the food-seeds or bulbs were brought. Of course, their customs, notably cannibalism, arrived with them, and, indeed, this horrid habit is ascribed to the gods who figure in the bewildering and frequently childish stories of the creation, out of which,
perhaps, very learned men may make something, and see dimly therein figurative descriptions of violent convulsions,
earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, and tornadoes. The South Wand was not invaded until comparatively recent times, and when Cook's Straits were crossed by one tribe, it * The Ancient History of the Maori : his Mythology and Traditions, Herauta or Taki-Tunsu Migrations. By John White. 4 vols. Wellington, New Zealand; and f3ampson Low and Co., London.
was followed and eaten up by a second, to be itself consumed by a third. It is supposed, however, that a few wild and fearful remnants of the earliest migration still exist among the thick forests which overhang the famous " Sounds," now shown to tourists by obliging captains of steamers from Melbourne. The strength and real home of the Maori were always in the North Island. It is significant of the constant slaughter going on that, according to this book, there are among the Maori no traditions of Tasman's or Cook's visits, and the inference is that the people who saw them must have been exterminated in the ordinary course of tribal and personal warfare.
The manners and customs of the Maori, as described by themselves, may be gathered from these collected accounts. They had no morals, properly speaking; but, like other nations, had a rude code of propriety and a point of honour of their own. They were polygamous ; they took or obtained wives wherever they went ; they held slaves, apparently prisoners of war, not killed and eaten ; they used all the craft and stratagem possible to overcome enemies or any one whom they pursued ; they never surrendered anything they found, not even when the owner was well known ; but they were naturally angered
against thieves. At the same time, they were hospitable, brave, and affectionate. They always loved learning, such as it was, and had schools of astrology, astronomy, and history, of agriculture, manufactures, fishing, and hunting. They were adepts in boat-building, and proficients in the painful practice of tattooing. They dealt much in sorcery and incantations, and they seemed to have invented the singular custom to tapu, which was very complicated, and had so great an influence, for good as well as evil, upon their daily lives. On the whole, they were and are a people full of capabilities, and it is astonishing that they never really established a sound polity of civil and religions life. Those who may wish to plunge into the maze of Maori practices, will find abundant materials in these curious volumes.
There are a host of oddities in Mr. White's pages, and we may take out one or two at random. Here is an account of the reason which, not long " after the arrival of the canoe Taki-Tumu from Hawaiki in these islands." led to the migra- tion of tribes occupying at that period the Wai-roa district, near Napier, in Hawke Bay :-
" A chief named Iwi-ka-tere, who lived at a pa, near Turi-roa, at the Wai-roa, had a pet tai [parson-bird], which had been taught to repeat the incantations chanted while planting the kunsara, taro, and other crops, and was thus a valuable economiser of time and labour, for the priests otherwise would have been obliged to chant these incantations themselves."
The owner lent the bird to a neighbour who would not return it ; whereupon the tribes fought fiercely, nominally about the bird, but it seems that the thief got the aid of a chief " who had been, driven from Turanga ;" so that, after all, the bloodshed may have been the result of a quarrel about land. Then the story goes on :— "A great battle was fought on the site of the present town of Danevirke, near Tahoraiti, in the Seventy-mile Bush ; and from the length of time taken to cook the slain in the hangi, or umu (oven), the place was called Umu-tao-roa (oven that took long to cook the food)."
Another example, this time of barbaric ingenuity, may be taken from native experience in Banks's Peninsula, where, long since of course, there was a priest who taught some heresy. He was killed in a battle, and this is the method employed by the victor to prevent his spirit from escaping and entering some other priest :— " When the battle was over, he made an oven capable of con- taining the entire body, and then he carefully plugged the mouth, ears, nose, and every aperture, and, having cooked the heretical teacher, he managed, with the assistance of some warriors, to eat up every portion of him, and so successfully extinguished the Incipient heresy."
A grim story, but not astonishing in a people some of whom held that " it was good to be eaten by man " rather than die in a bed, and who treated as enemies all who were not known to be friends. We are assured, however, by one Maori author, that the life of his people in peaceful times was not one of privation and suffering, but a pleasant state of existence. Men and women passed the time in agreeable and healthy employment, indoors and out, making clothes and bedding, hunting, fishing, collecting food-roots, which they cultivated, as well as the wild products, catching birds, making nets,
carving, grinding, fitting stone implements, and passing the winter evenings in telling stories, singing and poetry and dancing. It was only when any one fell ill, or when enemies assailed the tribe, that they had a troubled time. But for the men, war, if it involved danger and fatigue, was also a source of delight. We have been able to convey only a faint idea of the character of this strange book, and have given no speci- mens of Maori poetry, some of which is full of tenderness and passion of a realistic kind, and much, alas ! unintelligible, at least to a non-Maori mind.
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