THE ABORIGINES OF NEW ZEALAND.

Lyttelton Times, Volume I, Issue 27, 12 July 1851, Page 7

THE ABORIGINES OF NEW ZEALAND.

A dearth of news from the New .Zealand settlements gives us the opportunity of further extracting from the Rev. T. Buddies Lecture on the above subject, the first portion of which we reprinted in a former paper. The Religion and Superstitions of the New • Zealanders. The knowledge of the true God was totally lost among them. Nor had they any tradition corresponding with the doctrine of the Trinity, like the Hindoo tradition of Brama and Vishna and Siva. They were not idolaters in the popular acceptation of the word. This appears to be the case with most of the other Islanders- —they worship images, and have their gods' houses or sacred temples, where the gods reside, and receive the homage of their worshippers. But this was never the case with the New Zealander. Nevertheless he has gods many.' Their mythology very much reminds one of that of classic Greece and Rome. They had a small number of Gods of the first class, possessing various attributes. One, the creator of the Islands; another of man ; another the god of war; another of thieves, and so forth. Then follows a multitude of inferior deities—gods of sea and winds, tutelar divinities of towns, families, tribes, kumeras ; and ma-r lignant spirits haunting woods, caves, and desert places, whose delight it is to torment and annoy the human race.

One of the principal gods is " Uenuku." He has his residence under the rainbow. He is regarded as a sort of presiding deity, that governs and controls all their affairs. The thunder is his voice. They seek his favour and guidance on going to war. If the rainbow, which is his sign, stands in front of them, or on their left side, it is an intimation of evil, and they instantly return home. Should it be seen on the right, then Uenuku favours them, and they go forward confident that, they shall be victorious.

" Mawe" is another principal god. He fished the Island from the sea. "We generally see old maps of New Zealand witli the northern island called " He meahi no Mawe." I have no doubt but the origin of this was, on Captain Cook asking the Natives the name of tlieir country, they replied, He mea hi no Maive ; that is, " It is a thing fished from the sea by Mawe." This was put down as the name of the country. Mawe is.said to have had four sons. The father is named Mawe i mua. The sons, Mawe i roto ; Mawe i taha ; Mawe tiki tiki ote rangi; and Mawe potiki. They have four Mawes in the Hawaiian mythology, with names very similar —Mawe i mua—hope —tiitii—and atalana.

" Tiki" is spoken of as the creator of man. He had a wife named " Hine hui te po,'' by whom men were born to people the earth. The birth of her first-born was rendered remarkable by a little bird flying past and laughing at "Hine nui te po " at the birth. She was ashamed or offended, and strangled the child in the birth. This was the cause of death entering the world. But for the intrusion of this little bird there would have been no death and no night. The Ngapuhi (the Northern tribes) have a curious tradition about Mawe and the first sunset. When Mawe saw darkness cover the earth, he immediately pursued the sun, and brought him back again in the morning, but had no power to keep him from running away again and causing night. He however tied a string to the sun, and fastened it to the moon, that as the former went down, the other, being pulled after it by the superior power of the sun, might rise and give Mawe light during his absence. As the men of New Zealand offended him ; and as he could not darken the suu to punish them, nor hide the moon for ever, he placed his hand between it and the earth, at stated seasons, that they may not enjoy the light it was intended to give. In this way the' New Zealander accounts for day and night and lunar changes. "Tv" is the Mars of New Zealand—the god of war. To him they offered human sacrifices j the first prisoner taken in battle was sacred to Tu. His heart was taken out and roasted in a sacred oven, and then presented as a great .sacrifice to Tu. The body, too, was tapu. This was to propitiate the deity, make him favour them, and grant them success. Their war songs have constant reference to this god.

There is another class of gods which are only deified men; their own friends in short, whom they suppose,are all deified at death. These gods are supposed to sit on the top of their houses, and to whistle to them, or they appear in the form* of a lizard or an insect. I have seen an old chief sitting and looking with great earnestness at a beetle creeping over his garment, tmittering to it. On asking a bystander the meaning of it, I received for reply, He atua nona —" It is a god of his.1' I have sometimes thought these ideas may have originated in the ancient doctrine of Metempsychosis, or transmigration of souls. They evidently have the idea that souls pass from one body to another. This idea is suggested, too, by their fears, of a god called a " Taniwha."' He is a sort of amphibious being, that can live either on land or in the water. His principal habitation, however is the water, where he is seen in the form of an eel,or a shark, or some other fish. On the land he assumes the form of a large lizard, such, as they say was very numerous, as long and thick as a man's leg;— the species is not yet extinct, but seldom seen. They say if a mother strangles her child and throws it into the water, it becomes a Tanivha. Of this demon they are in great dread. He does all the the mischief. If a canoe be upset, it is the Taniwha seeking for victims. If any serious wound be received, it is the bite of the Taniwha. Their gods are not regarded as beings possessed of any moral attributes, rendering them objects to be adored and loved; on the contrary, they were objects of constant dread ; soon offended; punishing the most trivial offences, especially against the lawof tapu ; and hence the only motives by which they were influenced in their religious homage or service were, with very few exceptions, superstitious fear, ; revenge towards their enemies, a desire to avert the dreadful consequences of the anger of the gods, and to secure their sanction and aid in the commission of the greatest crime?. They seem to have fully believed in the existence of a spiritual world and a future state. They have their place of departed spirits, said to be the Rein - ga, near the North Cape. The spirit leaps into the sea and emerges into an Elysium situated in the island of the Three Kings. Their ideas about the spirit's journey to the land's end are somewhat earthly. They thought he would have rivers to cross, and would need food for his journey ; and a small canoe was placed by his side, a paddle in it, with a kete of kumeras to eat by the way. The idea was, that the spirit of the canoe would enable him to ferry himself across : the rivers, and the spirit of the food support him. Some of the tribes do not seem to have practised a custom, so common in many other islands, that of killing slaves and strangling wives to attend him in the world of spirits; though this practice was common in the north; They suppose the spirit often lingers on its journey to look upon them ere it reaches its final abode, and sings as it travels— I am flying to the winds of the Eeinga, But still awhile I linger, and prolong my flight. I hover on the mountains looking south, And take a last farewell of husband, child, and friend"-; For they are about to pierce me with a spear, To treat me as a plebeian, And eat me as their food. The last expression refers to the prevailing notion, that they go to the lleinga as food for their gods. The following lament contains the same idea on the subject of the spirit's journey. Our idea, learned from infallible Scripture, is, that a spirit's flight to its final abode is quick as thought1. " Absent from the body, present with the Lord." But the New Zealander does not calculate on so quick a transit. Weep, weep, ye tides of Hokianga, for my Kura. These were thy walks, and these thy favourite haunts, oh! Kura. But Kura is not here :— She is traversing the path that leads to the land of spirits. Lovely in life was the form of thy visage, oh! Kura. We see thy beauty no more. Thy attendants now are the guardians of the dead. Aue c Kura. It appears their Hades has a Kainga pai, and a, Kainga Kino, a place of happiness and a place of misery. They say their friends return and whistle to them, when they address them, saying, Ko Koe tena? "Is that you?" He Kainga pahea ton Kainga? " "What sort of a place havejou got?" Some reply, " It is a vile place, we have constant war, and nothing but dung to eat." Others reply, " It is a fine place, we have plenty of kumeras, and plenty of birds." When one of the first Missionaries had been preaching the scriptural doctrine of two eternal states, an old man began to protest against it with great vehemence, declaring he should not go to heaven, nor "would he go into the Reinga to eat kumeras with his friends who had gone before him. What a dark and cheerless system is Paganism 1 It creates a thousand fears in life, which it cannot relieve in death, and sends the spirit into eternity without a hope that hath foundation. In the case of the New Zealander it has partially given place to a religion that brings life and immortality to light.