ANCIENT MAORI DEITIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15252, 15 March 1913, Page 1 (Supplement)

ANCIENT MAORI DEITIES.

BT H.S.

The missionaries who settled in ancient Maoriland experienced immense trouble in eradicating the strange beliefs concerning their gods from the minds of the Maoris. Old superstitions* deeply rooted, are difficult to remove. It was not an instance of simple negation. The Maoris obviously concluded that seeing they had their own gods there was no reason why the white men should not have theirs. Mr. Marsden, in one of his letters, records a conversation he had with several Maoris upon this theme. When he told them that there was but one God, and that his God was also theirs the Maoris demurred. Unknown to themselves they adopted the Socratic method of reasoning. Had Mr. Marsden's God given him and the other white men sweet potatoes? How did it happen that the Maoris got the kumera, or sweet potatoe, and the pakeha did not? Why had so much partiality been shown to the white man with respect to cattle, sheep, and horses,, animals which the Maoris required just as much as the white man, and yet had got none? To the Maori mind these questions were unanswerable; but there was'still another, one they, thought that would finally settle the question at issue. MWe are of a different colour from you: if one God made us both why did he make the Maori dark and the pakeha white!" "Even one of the chiefs,'* wrote Mr, Marsden— "Missionary Register" for 182&— had been a great deal with me, and was disposed to acknowledge the absurdity ~ of many native superstitions, could not be brought to admit that the same God who made the white man had also made the Maori."

Atua was the chief god of the Maoris. Great confusion, however, must have existed with regard to this deity. Mr. Marsden, in his "Journal of First Visit," states that, once asking a Maori chief what he conceived the atua to be, received the reply "An immortal shadow." Atua was believed to be immortal, omnipresent, invisible, and supreme. But, notwithstanding attributes so overwhelming, he was considered to be, in disposition, "merely a vindicative and malignant demon." When a missionary had been speaking of the infinite goodness of God, the Maoris asked him if he was not joking with them. Much of permanent interest touching the attributes of atua appear in the proceedings of the Church Missionary Society for 1819. There it is set forth that, when a person became sick, his 'illness was occasioned by the atua, who, in the form of a lizard, was preying upon his interior. The only remedy they could think of was to oust the demon-god, and accordingly, friends of the ailing one, and others, assembled and "addressed the most horrid imprecations and curses to the invisible cannibal in the hope of thereby frightening him away." At other times this remarkable deity amused himself in entangling their nets and oversetting their canoes, "Of late years," says the "Missionary Register" for 1823, "they have suspected that he (atua)* had been very angry with them for having allowed the white men to obtain a footing in their countrya proof of which they think they see in the greater mortality that has prevailed among them." In later years it would appear that the Maoris attributed their diseases, early deaths, and general misfortunes to the God of the Christians, whom they denounced, along with atua, as a cruel being—at least to the Maoris. A missionary, however, found that in 1827 the natives in the Bay of Islands region at all events, had become more rational and were assigning their sickness to diseases which had bean introduced among them by the Europeans. "Until the whites came," said an old chief, "our young people did not die all lived to bo so old that they were obliged to creen, on their hands and knees." t With reference to the confusion of ideas about atua, chiefs, it may be explained, were frequently named atua, or gods,, while still alive. Terra, a chief,' informed a missionary that he was an atua, explaining that the god of thunder resided in his forehead. Terra had two rivals, it appears, in the providing of accommodation for gods. His neighbours, Shungie, Honai, and Okeda, claimed and maintained against all criticisms and objections that in them dwelt the gods of the sea. So says the nineteenth report of the Church Missionary Society. In " Nicholas's Voyage '*• is given a particularly full description of the numerous inferior deities of the Maoris. Their number, he states, was ".very great." Every one had distinct powers ana functions; one was placed over the elements, another over the fowls and fishes, and the same with the others/ The passions and affections were deified, and were cared for by many gods. Nicholas alludes to the resemblance of Maori and Malay mythologies, more especially to the circumstance of the three principal divinities of the Battas of Sumatra having precisely the same powers assigned to them as were bestowed on the three chief gods of the Maoris. It is very remarkable, observes Nicholas, that the Maoris attribute the creation of man to their three principal deities working together, " thus exhibiting, in their barbarous theology, something like a shadow of the Christian Trinity." 'What seems still more extraordinary was the Maori tradition respecting the", formation of the first woman, who, they declared, was made of one of the man's ribs. .

Not only individuals but also places had their own peculiar gods. In the journal of Marsden's second voyage it is mentioned that, while the ship Active was in the River Thames a strong gale began to blow. The natives who were on board said the wind showed that Shougah's god was angry about something. • Shougah was a rangatira who lived near where now stands the town of Thames. An elderly Maori, Koro-koro by name, promised that, as soon as he got ashore he would endeavour to prevail upon Shougah to propitiate his god and get him put in a better humour. Mr. Marsden thought he would, embarrass the natives at Kaipara upon one occasion, so put to them the quesions: Did they know anything about their god? Had they ever had any communication with, him? The first question the Maoris deemed frivolous, and unworthy of a reply. With regard to the second Mr., Marsden became the embarrassed one. The Maoris informed him with due solemnity that frequently they had heard the god of the Kaipara whistle. In the sun and moon and the stars the Maoris of olden times saw gods and the spirits of dead chiefs. Of the heavenly host, relates Mr.; Savage, the moon was their favourite. *' Why he thought this," remarks a later writer, " it is not easy to understand, seeing that when addressing this luminary, they employed a mournful song, and seemed to be as full of apprehension as of devotion; whereas, when paying their adoration to the rising sun, the arms were spread and the head bowed, with the appearance of much joy in their countenances."- Great importance was attached to the more conspicuous constellations. The issues of human affairs, they thought, were occasionally influenced, or at least indicated, by the movements of the stars. The Pleiades was one constellation that fired their imagination, as it has that of more enlightened races. Tennyson, for example, often watched the Pleiades.'

Rising through the mellow shade*. Glitter like a sw*rm of fire-lie* tangled In * •ilrer braid. The Maoris looked upon the Pleiades. as seven of their departed countrymen, fixed in the firmament. One eye alone of each was visible, and it appeared in the shape of a star. It was, however, • a common superstition that the left eyes of great chiefs, after death, became stars. The home of the cods was " beautiful in the extreme." "When? the clouds are beautifully chequered the atua above is planting sweet potatoes."- Cruise's journal states that the Maoris*of high rank were alone immortal when the common folks died they perished for ever. One eye of a chief became a spirit and ascended to the skies, where it shone as a star; the other, as a spirit, took flight to Te Reinga, thence reaching an Elysium, situated sometimes in the islands of the Three Kings,