MOUNTAIN MANA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 76, 30 March 1935, Page 1 (Supplement)

MOUNTAIN MANA.

the soul of the ranges. MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL.

(By J.C.)

"Everyone felt that an inimical power was watching over the Himalaya peaks, causing thi* death of anyone believing that he corald conquer tliem." So (vide cablegram) said the leader of the latest European expedition, lecturing on his uncanny experiences in Tibet. This primitive belief in the mighty mana of {he mountain gods has communicated itself, in some measure, to many civilised explorers. That famous pioneer of many perilous ways in Asia, Sir Francis Younghusband, has expressed a belief analogous to the faith of the Tibetans —and our own Maoris of the old generations —in the soul of the mountains. In an address to the Royal Geographical Society he expressed the opinion that geographers should take a less material, more spiritual view of the earth and its many wonders, and especially its high mountains, regard her as Earth-Mother, and recognise our intimate connection with her. A thoughtful man who has seen much of the high and solitary and danger-filled places of the world cannot but feel something of this spirit, and for him it is easy to enter into the awe which fills the native peoples whose eyes, all their lives, have been uplifted to the alpine gods. The enormous difficulty which attends ascents of Everest and its companion supreme peaks, heightens and confirms the native reverence for the citadels of ice and the unwillingness to trespass on the secret places of the deities. A New Zealand "Conqueror." There are other men, who fail, unlike Younghusband and the Berlin scientist, to feel the spiritual influence that creates this peculiar adoration of its heights. There was a certain doughty xnountajrieer in New Zealand who was fond of describing his "conquest" of this peak and that—as if a high alp can ever actually be conquered. He was a vigorous and tireless climber, and the asceut of Aorangi, and Sefton and other major peaks in the Southern Alps was a matter for rather boastful narrative in book and lecture. He had stood on their summits for a few minutes, and considered that a conquest. In a purely physical sense it was, but the appreciation of the. soul of the mountains —the "mauri" that in the Maori belief animated such places —was quite beyond him. His great ambition was to be included in an expedition to Mount Everest —lie felt confident of success there. He never achieved that fortune; the New Zealand mountains, puny as Ihey were, conquered him. I knew him pietty well, and lam sure his death at a comparatively early ago was simply attributable to too much mountain climbing. He wore himself out in his attempts to crown his alpine feats in two hemispheres by "conquering" Mount Tutoko, down in the Milford Souud country.

The uncanny aura that seems to surround a higli and wonderful mountain has produced folk-loro of the Tibetan kind in many an alpine land. It has boen noted in the Andes by European climbers, who were warned by the Indians of Peru and Ecuador against venturing into the deity-guarded heights of snow and fire. The native faith, or imagination, created hosts of invisible beings which hurled down rocks and avalanches on trespassers.

Sir Martin Conway was ono of those who received such warnings. The natural obstacles and dangers were sufficient, in his view to originate the local superstitions. But Younghusband has a more spiritually-minded, or sympathetic attitude towards the beliefs of those people whose whole lives havo been passed in contemplation of the icy peaks and the smoking volcanoes. Some day, no doubt, we shall hear of the "conquest" of Everest, and it will bo a triumph of dogged perseverance, fixity of purpose, physical courage and endurance, conjoined to scientific skill and many inventions. But if the successful climbers a.rc of the Youngliufiband type, they will not return to the lower world in a spirit of pride so much as of reverence for the mountains that brought forth all that was fine and manly and great in the characters of climbing comrades. Beauty And Poetry. We should treasure our own high traditions of the mountains as well as the mountains themselves. Egmont and the Tongariro trinity are examples of peaks in which beauty and grandeur are linked with legend and poetry even richer than the primitive folk-lore of the Asiatics or the South American tribes. And to those who share this respect for the soul of the hills to which they lift their eyes, it is not difficult to fancy, with the Maori, that the "mauri" of the mountains is offended by those who ignorantly interfere with their ancient sanctity and repose. This is indeed more than fancy. If our mountains are stripped of the forest with which nature clothed them for untold centuries, if they are deprived by ignorant man for the sake of a little temporary profit, they will surely be revenged upon their despoilers. In a hundred places in New Zealand we have seen the tragic results of such meddling .with this life and soul of the ranges. Floods and droughts are the weapons with which the spirit of wild nature punishes the forest-destroyers. The damage is done beyond repair or reparation in some places, but at this moment, despite all the warnings of the mountains, the protecting garment of bush is going.

Pirongia mountains, Te Aroha, the liangitoto Ranges in the King Country, (he hills of the Coromandel Peninsula, the Urewera Mountains, all sliould.be regarded as sanctuaries of the hill gods, places to be treasured, and revered, and loved. Our people must be dead to all sense of beauty if they look calmly on while those places are so needlessly desecrated. But there is more than mere beauty involved. The preservation of those hills in their native dress of trees is essential to the very life of dwellers 011 the plains below and all around. The violation of those natural laws that are embodied and personified in the soul and "mauri" of the mountains will surely bring disaster on New Zealand of the near future.

It is. not our high alps of ice and show that are so vital to the country's welfare as the minor ranges which feed so many of the rivers and streams, and from which the forest that holds and conserves and regulates the waterfiow is going without an effort to save it except on the part of a few writers and ' scientifically-minded societies. Government help is non-existent.