PRIMITIVE MAW IN POLYNESIA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 138, 10 June 1905, Page 9

PRIMITIVE MAW IN POLYNESIA.

No. XIII. POLYNESIAN RELIGIOUS AND MYTHOLOGICAL IDEAS. (By TRjOFlv-tsOR J. MACMII.LAN •BKOWX.) (All Pvights Reserved.) IN ANCESTOR-WOR*HIP AND MARTTIMI". DEMIOODS THKRE IS THK SAM E < i i:XKB AL ItESKM P.LANCK. There is a similar medley of el: men ■■ and stages in what unc might call lhe literal;.- or imaginative sid>- « »f religion. Hie myths and personitied religious thoughts. No people has -'i ni.iniff.-i !y indiilgcil the imagination in ii-s. treatment of ant-esunl tradition :*s the Maori. Their genealogies alone would prove this: they have no shamefacfdness in yoking up t heir aristur-rni ie families li\ liif.-an.s of deliiiite names and generatiuii.s to the great gods t!ia r arc clearly 'n their origin the sulilimer pheiionienH of tlic cosmos. The ii;u> as unambiguous and decided in i ! b.iM-ne-s as those supplied by the Herald's College for new-made families. There is HI tip hesitation in the early links that )iimJ together gods and men ;••< in those of grandfather and grandson. where memory is guide. Little wonder that chiefs like Te Heuheii of Taupn should I claim to bt- themselves gods whilst still I living. It is 1 his ancestral deification that i? ; responsible for'so much that is refreshi ingly human in th'e annuls of Olympus. ■especially amongst the European divi- ; sinus of the Aryan race. All races and nations indulge in it: but the Teutons, 'the Celts, the (Jrecks, and the Polynesians excel in its use. I'or amongst I them no great, imperial unity forced ! into the background the gotl-forming j right and duty of every locality and cliuj. The necessity of national defence and oli'euee in war obscure*, if it does ■ not obliterate, the old ancestral wor- ! ship of the household, and at the same, time the myth-iyaklnp; fatuity that produces a pantiieon of demigods. The Polynesian demigods have most resemblance in their lives and deeds 1 o those of Scandinavia. Although Tawhaki, with other later humanised editions of him, has a, hint of Endvmion

j " "V i visited by the moon in the story of the I heavenly maiden's visjt 1;> him. lijs, i chnfa.-liT as ;i perfect anrl beautiful ' J hern hjfs more likeness to that of the ! Xorthern hero Baldnr. So Maui. j , though, like Prometheus, he brings tire .' to men from f.he other and tries * to snafeh immortiility for them, and I t hough he goes through a series of \ , j labours, like Hereulcs. he has in bis ' j nature far more of Hie Northern Loki: ! ! , is full of ;i wicked humour, if not , I wit. th'ii never eea.-rs playing mischiev- , 1 mis tr'cKs mi both gnds anil men; more- : ; over. Loki iScotch lowc) is in origin.' ; like Maui. a tircgod or sungorl. Fur- ! 1 liiT. the domijsrod voyagers that , . i abound in Polynesian 1 radit ions unrl ,- genealogies. ■ Whiro. Kupc. Turi. (*i-te-' Knnsiiirn. Tiingiia. and a ilo7.cn others - remind us fur more of the half-mythical j.' Sc!indin:i\ ian \"ikings who sailed to U-r- ---, , iiillil iilid ( Ireenland and I'inhiivl and : . j m:in\ phicns that are noi ident ! riablc by ' niflflci'ii geognipiiy than of the wamlcr-; ■ ings of I'ly.sses narrated in the l)ii\<- , ■ s--y. Vet there is a likeness and kin-: , j ship in .ill three types that seem to in- : ' dicatc -oiiic primi'vnl proximity in ( lir* j " ; peoples that evolved them. Of course.', o ! they have esu-h loenl colour ihat <l : f- I - I fcrentiates them, and the n/HnifA , m:iy j, Ibe due In the similarity of the regions | land circiiniMances in which they were ('evolved, liul there are other maritime • j people-! in similar coinptions. like the r ; Phoenicians. Ihe Ai'ul>s. ;!ic Cartha- ,_ giniajis. the Malays and thc •hipaiic.-c ! ■ i 11 ; ,.} havp not (fevei'opeil a similar series • •of heroic vovawrs. ! ""'AHYAX AND POLVXE'JJAX CLJLTCKE I LOOKS TO THE COLD XOfiTH. j t| AM) Si.) DOES TIIF. MYTH OF j ci t;ii-; disc:o\ Kay of artificial; j FIRE. I 1 ; Such .-ea-adventurers and sea-athi'ii-■i | tures point in each ease fo northern* | I origin, to a climate that, with its, rigorous winters, induced a strenuous; life. And it. is now generally accepted s by philologists that tbe Aryan iangu-j - j age was originally moulded in the | j North Temjierate. if not sub-Arctic, I zone, and the Halt!e zone, with outliers 'to The Black Si>;:. is usually chosen as , 1 thp starting-point of tbe Asiatic. Aryans. ! . the Ctrccks aii<l the Latins, when they . i hived oil' southwards. Thc tongues of I (bat region arc- too rniu-h alike ever to I have heen widely separated or to have ' migrated from Asia, and both Sanskrit X and J'ci-sian are too advanced, when j I hey come on the Mtene. not to have _'• travelled far and come into contact I with more cultured peoples. Then the s ! animals whose names are common to •j 1 h:- , various Indo-European languages. p i bear, beaver, boar. deer. (fog. rluci:, fox. , goose, lyux. mouse, otter, wolf, eagle ' I aud swan are chiefly those of the Euro- ■ pean colder zone; tbe trees aiul iish t whose names are common point in tbe 3 same direction, whilst the common vocabulary shows familiarity with tbe sea ■ and marine animals. And the foliowa ing description of the original land of

the Aryans in the first chapter of the Persian sacred book, the Yendiclad. con'linns the indications: ""The winter ; months are ten, and the months of j summer two. and these cold for the walers. cold for thp e.urth. cold for the trees, and winter falls there with the woisT of its plagues." It reminds us ! of the passage that was quoted in the J fifth article from the Easier Island in- ' si-ripuori. The division of 1 he year inj to winter and -mmnrr. with stress laid i on winter, anrl t Ir , reckoning of time J by nights, and not by days, all of which :iit common t:> the Polynesians anrl the ■ Euvuiii'.'iii Aryans, have a similar siginiflcance; Ihey were not originated in ■ the tropics, where winter is not uinrk- ( lly dit-tinguished Irom summer, and the nights do m>l impress by their length, ilauinati. the .Maori name for ' MiiDliK'i*. sonieliines translated "the times nf leaves.'" is not a distinctive . n.unc foi the ser.son in a land of ever- ; grei'ti foi'psts. It is not thc natural epithet in n region of lcntUss winters. : All tlii— is doubly emphasised in the , : mythology of not only the. Indo-Kuro-i pcaiis. but the Polynesians. In all of them there is the record of the gre.iti HP" of the revolution in life achieved J by the discovery of the artificial proI duction of fire. Prometheus, the Greek I tire-hringcr. snatches it from heaven in ,i fennel-stalk, mid is sorely punished for his act. .Maui. the Polynesian fireI hrinaor. gets the secret of making rire I from the "oiHcss of .artificial fire, Ma- ; liuika. the >i-i.>r of The Creat Lady of Darkness, and after being almost crw- ; »umed in U;c cuntlagrution of land and ; sen that she starts in consequence, he throws the seed- of tire into the kaiko- ! nifiko, the soft-woodftd tree from which [the .Maoris tuke : he under or groovingj >ti<-k making lire. They have , another jroddes.s of the under world. ■ lline-i-Tapeka, for ntiturtil or volcanic j lire. And thus the race emphasised the. ; difference between that which they could I produce and that which they found in i New Zealand, and indicated that it was j in no volcanic laud that their ancestry i first learned the secret of tiro. And I though they hnd a mechanical drill for i boring holes in greenstone, fchpy adhered ! to the much more primitive method of 1 rubbing n-,-,e stick along another that ij held Him on the ground. i L'p fill the time of Europenn < "niutc!ies j it was continued, and the under stick I was held firmly by a woman, who placed j her font upon if. And this, added to the fact that the two deities of tire in thc under-world aro goddesses, .-cwus to [ be a relic of the matri«rchalv/ when women were doniitiant in the. household and were the arbiters of heredity and right-. The downfall of "m'othcirijrhf i- clearly iiuilcntecl by thc as.-ign-ment of the rule of the circles or zones of Po or the under world to goddesses, whilst those of heaven have gods to govern and direct them. It is the mark of a discarded or conquered religion that its deities are tumbled into hell or the underworld as giants or demons. .When

women -were the pivot of tlie property | and rights of a race, Olympus must have ; consisted of goddesses. When the patri- ; art-hate took then- place, their divine t counterparts were relegated to the lower • world. . ; Bui in the mythological history of the i races of Polynesia this dethronement ' took pluec before the discovery of tiresticks. For Maui has to descend to the : underworld to bring back the secret from ; the goddess, who kept it from men. In -. otlier words, the riiatriarchate must be- j long to a period in the history of the! Polynesians, as in the history of the , Caucasians, that is separated /row our j era by thousands, if not tens of thou- j sands, of years: for artificial fire goes) back with them into early palaeolithic \ times. And the fire-bringing episode in ' the stories of Prometheus and Maui must! ,aro back almost as far. One of the most j impressive facts about the antiquity of Polynesia and its isolation is this: it is the only region in the world that has preserved this primitive method of producing Hie; ."ill others have the drill of one kind or another, or as a variant the I nirthod of striking out fire. The firesticks do not belong to India or Indo- ■■ nesia. another proof that the majority i of the people in Polynesia cannot have ! come with the last or South Asiatic im- , migration. Nor would we be far wrong in localis- j ing the discovery of artificial lire in ' North Temperate or Sub-Arctic regions, j or at least in regions frozen by the ad- j vaneing ice-sheet. In the warm zones I lire is not a necessity of primitive man. , biit a luxury. The easy-won fruits and j nuts of most tropical regions would make j cooking almost a superfluity. Necessity j is undoubtedly the only mother of invention in primeval times. And so we may take it for granted that artificial fire, and cooking too. appeared first in the zones of the wintry north, and found their way to the tropics with migrant and probably conquering peoples. At iirst cooking must have been done in the open air. because of the smallness of the huts, and the danger to them, if made of reeds or wood. The custom of cooking in an opiii shed or in the open air. .still common amongst the Maoris, is a relic of this primeval stage, preserved by the women of the aborigines taken into the households. The habit was firmly established before their ancestry hud advanced far enough to build large houses capnblo of having lires and hearths in them. The hearth ;is a centre of family and social life is another feature of Northern origin, where the long winters | make it. of extreme importance. The | home-life that is so characteristic of the Teutonic nations, as contrasted with the Latin aiid Southern nations, is based on this. But the myth of Prometheus shows that the Greeks migrated from the North. And. though the fire-bringing episode of Maui's life might have come from the Aryans of the Pun ja üb. we see in the growth of their myths and worship the lessening importance of fire in the warm?r zone to which they bad come; and it is more likely to have accompanied the migrants from the North Pacific. By cither rovto the sea-nurture of the infant Maui is esaily explained, though in the Manahiki group it is to Tangaroa that Maui goes to discover the secret of fire: j -md Tangaroa is in Polynesia the fair i god of the fair-haired sea-haunting people, who were driven out or absorbed by the newcomers from South Asia. SOME OF MAITS FEATS EXPLAINED. Pat his exploit in noosing the sun and compel ling him to go slower, and so to leiiirlhcii the day, is h«=t attributed to the North Pacific immigrants. There would not be much difference made in the day by sailing from South Asia into Polynesia (and the episode belongs to Polynesia, r.nd not tn New Zealand alone); I'.je migration from the North to the tropics offers a natural and easy rulionalp of the seemingly absurd story. The only oilier tribes that have this I story of noosing the sun in their mythology are the North American Indians. ! though there are traces of ii. in North ! Germany and Hungary; and the peoples of Ihese regions all migrated from the North. In spite of Maui's phase as a I fire-bringor. that must date far back in I palaeolithic time*, he. is bsst looked jon as a culture-hero and migration lender of the Northern element in the Polynesian race. The story of his mischievous and humorous exploit* would lie as welcome to the children in the j households of the conquerors as it would ;he ready to the lips of the conquered i women. His feat in fishing the various islands j out of the depths of {he sea is natural jto a people that lives in archipelagoes of j volcanic origin, where an island may \ appear and disappear within a short period. But this feature, belongs to Indonesia and the Japanese archipelago alike, as it does to parts of Polynesia ; itself. So the story of his effort to obtain immortality for man by re-en-trrfhee into the womb of Hine-nui-te-po, or the (ireat bady of Darkne.-s. has close kinship with similar descents into hades or hell in (Jreek and in Teutonic mythology. And it might have come either route, though its absence from Hindoo mythology in any comparable form might indicate that it belongs to the Northern immigration. Ti is generally taken as a miieh-:>b-literated sun-myth, as mos- of those stories of descents into darknfr:=; of ihe underworld are. and they are frequent iv many brandies of Aryan-speaking peoples. What seems especially to mark it a-s a sun-myth is the laughter of ihe piwakawaka. or pied fautail, that by waking the (-treat Lady <>f Darkness caused the failure of Maui's effort ti gain immortality: he is the bird that welcome* the night. All these sun-myths; have doubtless their origin in t.he North, i where the lcng winter makes the coining of the sun in his strength so welcome. A tropical or even sub-tropical I origin is difficult to understand, for in j hot climates the sun is. perhaps, the greatest commonplace of life; it is ever ; with the inhabitants, and is no more likely to be specially singled out for beneficence titan the air they ' breathe. Tire Sanskrit-speaking Aryans reached the Piuijaub with Yaruna, the Heavens, as the highest of their deities, and all i the gods that had originated in sun- ! worship high in their pantheon. In InI dia these fell gradually into the background, and the gods of the thunder and the rain-shower and the storm took their place, to be thrust out in their turn by the new local gods like Kali nnd Siva. I ~* .»——