COMETS AND KINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 102, 2 May 1935, Page 6

COMETS AND KINGS.

AND PROPHECIES OF WAR

MAORI SKY PORTENTS

(By J.C.)

Exactly twenty-five years ago, as an astronomical note reminds one, Halley's Comet was a wonderful object in tie night sky. Its appearance then, on its amazing ceaseless pilgrimage through space, inexplicable to science, yet rhymed to a def.nite periodicity, coincided with tiie death of King Edward VII. and the accession of King George V., in 1910. Astronomers would smile at this association of events, but there was a curious world-wide concern in that coincidence-, an interest not confined to primitive peoples. The heavenly visitant, banging like a descending torch, the passing of the old King and the coming of the new, brought to millions of people a revival of the ancient belief in portents of the sky and the influence of the stars and the comets on human affairs. Just now, when the Empire is celebrating with all ceremony the semi-jubilee of the King's enthronement, I recall a certain symposium on the day of His Majesty's accession a quarter of a century ago. It was a little gathering of Maori chiefs, the wise men of their tribes; they were all "inatakitc," or seers. It was in a house in Wellington, and [ was the only pakeha there. I reproduce the korero from an account I wrote for the "New Zealand Graphic" of that d,-y. But not until this moment has the fulfilment of the seers' remarkable prophecy been mentioned in print. Each Maori in the little group wore purple and black rosettes, the Royal mourning, and the talk was of the departed King, Eruera to Tua-whitua; and the new King, Hori te Tuariin.i. Two of the chiefs were old soldiers of the Queen. One was the stem-faced Tula Nihoniho, chief of Ngati-Porou, who for live years had fought the llauhaus on the East Coast and in the Urewera Country. The other was greybeard Waaka Ta/iaira, from Tokaanu, Lake Taupo, who had served under General Cameron and later commanders. Tula had held a captain's commission. Waaka had been a sergeant in Ihe Native Contingent. Moth were deeply learned in the lore of the. ancients, particularly Waaka, who was a tohunga by heredity and training; he was one of the'younger sons of the great Te Ifeuheu Tukino, who was killed by the historic landslide at To Rapa, Taupo. in lS4ii. Another in the room iviia the later Te Heuheu Tukino, who became M.L.C. (he died in Wellington in 1921). What Halley's Comet Presaged. "The heavens foretold us the death of the King," said old Waaka. "When I saw that great comet in the sky on the first morning after my arrival here to see the Native Minister, I knew a great man would soon die. It is a sign that never fails. I have seen .such signs in the heavens in the past, and each time it was cither a foretelling of a high chief's death or of a great disaster or a war." This turned the conversation to a grave consideration of the omens, which the sky held for mankind. The Maori is by way of being an astronomer; he knows much of the weather-portents of the sky, but it was more a poetic astrologer than a- priest of science that the man of the old school like Waaka Tamaira read the heavens. I told them that (hat morning a cablegram from Durban said that the South African natives connected the comet with the death of King Edward, and that they believed the visitor was a chariot sent to carry the King's soul to Heaven. I told of the Chinese and Japanese agitation over the comet, and translated for them what I remembered of Shakespeare's opening lines in "King Henry V 1.," at the royal funeral scene in Westminster Abbey: Ilunp be tlie heavens with black, yield day to night! Comets, importing: chang-o of times and States. , , Brandish your crystal tresses in the sky! "Yes," said Waaka, "that is all very true. See how all peoples believe in these signs of tho sky." The Great War Foretold. I had shown Tula Nihoniho a rough sketch of the grand spectacle in the north-eastern sky that early morning—the glorious triangle of*shining ones, Jupiter at the apex and the crescent moon on the right and Halley's Comet on the loft. This wondrous spectacle of celestial objects had been observed ihy all the Maoris. Said Tuta, holding up tho sketch in a shaking hand: "See, friends —this picture is exactly as we saw the heavens. Now, this is my interpretation of the portent. The comet, which we call Te Aua:hi-tu-roa (literally, "The Longstanding Smoke"), is, as we all know, like a shooting star, an omen of death. It does not appear for common people, but only for the great ones of the earth."

And Tuta explained that while such signs of moon and morning star always presaged war. the Maori view was that, taken in conjunction with the appearance of the comet, the portent indicated a war greater than ordinary. It would be a war involving the whole world ("te ao katoa").

The Flaming Gods. The venerable Waaka had his turn again. "Yes, but why do these strange torches flying through .space presage misfortune to man?" he asked. "I shall tell yon. Tlioy are the outward semblances of gods. This person Te Aualii-tu-roa is a divine one. Rongomai, our tribal god of war, appeared to us in the form of a meteor or a comet. Wo saw such gods in the sky just before the long wars began in Taranaki in 1800. That strange sight in the heavens just now is of a certainty the forerunner of a very great war." Te Heuheu Tukino said that his tribal and family guardian, Rongomai, sometimes appeared as a great glare of lire on the horizon. If a comet appeared it was looked upon as a forerunner or guide of Rongomai ("te kai arataki a Rongomai''). A •comet was seen by the Maoris during the inter-tribal wars of the thirties of last century. (That was no doubt Halley's Comet.) And so on they talked, those wise men, turn and turn about. They bad other tales of godlike portents, in particular that erratic Kast Coast spirit, Tu-nui-a-te-ika, a vengeful deity, whose form the tohnngas would see flying through the air or wriggling along the ground like a ball of lire. But they always returned to that 'portentous Long-standing Smoke and spoke gravely of the war that would follow its appearance. Nothing (1 wrote in 1010) will shake the Maori belief that Halley's Comet foreshadowed (lie death of King Edward VII.; and Tuta and Waaka Tamaira and their fellow seers are in earnest when they say: "Look out for a great war, a war that will drag in the whole world. For the heavens tell us so." And that war prediction was verified. True, we had to wait four years for the World War, but come it did, and it lasted four years, Astronomers tell us that Halley's Comet is due to appear again in 1085, in its cycle of 75 years. If the. great tohnngas who rule the world's affairs can only be persuaded to postpone the next war till then! ... It may be that half a century hence the nations by mutual consent will have scrap heaped their monstrous and devilish, machinery of scientific wholesale slaughter and torture, and will have reverted to the sane and clean simplicity of rifle and bayonet and sword and .tomahawk. «■ ' ...