THE ASTRONOMICAL SCHOOL

Otago Witness, Issue 2649, 21 December 1904, Page 10 (Supplement)

THE ASTRONOMICAL SCHOOL

consisted in the relation, by priests and chiefs of high standing and education of the accumulated knowledge of the

compared, the lessons taught them in their } outh were rehearsed again by grey-haired priests and chiefs, and the experience of long years in connection! with the significance and influence of certain stellar conjunctions, related and verified. The result of these meetings was the setting of a kind of primitive almanac of the year's events and undertakings, that all might be done under the most auspicious circumstances*. The days on which crops should be planted, the localities for fishing and bird-snaring, together with the year's pi'ogramme for travelling, visiting, and festivals. The laws of Tapu to be observed in regard to food, and the intrusion of the common people into the teaching precincts, were much the same as were observed m regard to Wharekura, while there was the same performance of impressive rites and ceremonies to be gone through in closing the sessions of the School of Astronomy. Pre-eminent among the social laws of the ancient Maori stood the law of Tapu- — the primary meaning of the word is "sacred." On becoming acquainted with the meaning of the Sabbath observance of the early missionaries the Maori at once characterised that day as the "Ra-tapu" — Sacred Day. Certain persons and things were always sacred; but the ramifications of the law of Tapu were pi'actically unlimited, and some of its operations remarkably inconvenient, as may be seen by our artist's illustrations. The persons of all priests and chiefs were sacred — tapu, as also human flesh, bodies of the dead and all that came in contact with them, food and seed houses, first fruits of the kumara, first fish of the season, persons employed in planting the kumara, sick persons and their attendants., war pai'ties, those employed in weaving fishing nets or on fishmg expeditions, food which had touched or been couched by anything or person who was already tapu. Many other things were temporarily rendered tapu, as, for example, trees con-

sidered suitable for canoe, building, particular tracts of country, or special fishing areas; in fact, it was in the power of priests and chiefs to render anything tapu without fui their ceremony by simply denominating it as belonging to their head or to their backbone. Priests and chiefs, being tapu, were naturally precluded from social intercourse with the people, and exempted from

tfaeir toils. Those who violated the tapu were punished not merely by men, which might have been borne, but also by the gods, whose dread vengeance manifested itself in mysteries of misfortune, disease, and death. It was the superstitious terror of the vengeance dealt by the gods which rendered the law of tapu so powerful. Horrible were the punishments which tradition recorded against the names of

, great men who had, rendered over-bold by their own 1 knowledge of the mystic arts, defied Lhc tapu. Many an I unexplained death among the Europeans in early days of [ settlement was due, not to the bloodthirsty treachery or ferocity of the Maori, but to' the simple necessity of avenging some desecration of holy places or things on the part of the ignorant White stranger. The law of tapu was of considerable 1

value to the priests in carrying on their practice of the Black Art, and by inweaving the dread of tapu with their own scarcely less dreaded spells and incantations the life of his enemy actually lay in the hollow of the great tohunga 's hand. In order to exercise his Black Art by bewitching any person it was necessary that the priest should possess a lock of hair, a scrap of clothing, or some intimate personal belong-

ing of the person to be makutu. after which, if the tohunga were a first-class priest of really great mana, the days, or even hours, of the unfortunate victim were numbered. What must have been the power and witchcraft of the ancient Maori tohunga operating in communities placed by their superstitious belief entirely at his mercy may be inferentially conceived by remembering the power still accredited to these

professors of a primitive Black Art. The following paragraph in this morning's paper (Otago Daily Times, July 19> is ample corroboration : — "The Wellington correspondent of the Lyttelton Times writes: The Natives of the Wairarapa are much disturbed at the prospective return of Mahuta to Wellington — not that they fear the 'King' himself, but that they dread the powers of some of his followers. Two

of the chiefs of the Waikato (Hohanga and Te Toko), who accompanied Mahuta last year, are believed by the Nativ s to be possessed of extraordinary mana as tohungas, and ths Wairarapas believe that during the last recess thc-e two used their malignant powers to makutu (bewitch) Tamahau and another of the valley tribe, who died daring the recess."

The marriage observances were entirely civil. No restraint was placed on the bestowal of a young girl's favours, and she pleased herself in her selection of lovers until her marriage. Once married, or settled in the house of the man chosen for her, or by her, the coquetries of a woman were assumed to be over, and lightness of demeanour was looked Upon as an impropriety. Cases of infidelity were of course

I not infrequent, but were promptly recognised as an ofLnee to tribal morality, being punishable either by the in]urcd individuals or by their relative. In the former ca=o the voman was either turned out of her home, severly beaten, oc even killed; in the latter the punishment frequently took the form of "muni," which meant that the offender was completely stripped of all personal property — -indeed, his

share of the communal wealth might also be attached by the law of Muru. It was a very rare thing for any reproach to be brought against a wife who was also a mother ; and the Maori matron compared well with her sister women of coloured races the world over. Chiefs were allowed to have several wives. To each was assigned her own house, or a separate apartment of the

co;n'U~n hors?. To have several wives added to the dignity and importance of the chief's general mana or renown. The fir-1 wife took precedence, unless she were childless. Many of the most torching and pathetic p-overbs and laments in the IMaori language are those express ye of the lonely sorrow of an old oi 1 cliildlcss wife disregard ~d and neglected for her younger rival. The Maori woman of ancient times* had many

cares and duties, and varied no doubt as lmich in their performance as did Martha and Mary of old. They made all the clothing and bedding required for their families, and took as much pride in the skill displayed in the elaborate border patterns (taniko) of their fine mats as any Pakeha lady in her necdlecraft of drawn thread or modern j'oi"*'. Plenty oi commoner work was involved in the preparation of the

ketes required for carrying and storing food. The whole textile art of the ancient Maori (learnt, we must remember, from the Maui Maori or Tangata Whenua) implied as long and tedious a process as the carding, spinning, and weaving, which occupied the Englishwoman of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Our illustration pleasingly embodies some of the long processes which were necessary before the shining leaves of the Phormium tenax were transformed into the soft, thick, finely-woven Korowai and Kaitaka mats, which are capable (as may be seen in several of our portraits) of being draped with all the classic dignity of a Roman toga. Some of these finely-woven garments, with their deep border patterns of various taniko designs, took months to comi-lete, and yet they were child's play in comparison with the patient toil required to make the magnificent feather cloaks, such as Kurungatuku numbered among her treasures.

The women were, in conjunction with the slaves, the bearers of all burdens, since the men, having taken the wise precaution to have their backs tapu, were precluded from carrying anything. They also shared in the cultivation of the food plantations, though the men gathered and stored the harvest in whatas — storehouses built on tall scaffolds to protect the contents from damp or rat? — or ruas — cellars excavated in the face of dry mounds or banks, and protected with a sliding panel door. Then there was the kao to prepare, and the stores of birds, pigeons, wekas, kakas, paradise duck, etc., to preserve in their own fat, and pack in tanas — vessels made from the leaves of the giant kelp, calabashes, or specially woven flax vessels. Some of these + ahas for preserved food were quite works of art, especially when, as was often the case, they were sent as gifts from one chief or tribe to another. Mr Hamilton, in his "Maori Art" — an exquisite and most valuable work, — mentions a present ol ten large tahas, some of them carved and ornamented, containing about 1800 preserved birds, be'ng presented in 1874 to Mr Brabant and Winmu Kingi (representing the Government) by two chiefs of the Uriwera, Paerau, and Kereru te Pukenui.

The tribal festivals or Hakari were occasions which necessitated immense preparations of these preserved foods, and the advent of a singularly good bird-snaring year, season, or food harvest often initiated the preparations for these banquets, in which each tribe strove to outdo its neighbours. Hospitality was SO' highly esteemed among the Maoris that they cheerfully undertook not only to double their toils, as in the planting and care of larger food cultivations, but to halve their pleasures by enduring short commons in their daily food for months at a time in order to prepare for one of these tribal Hakari. These feasts had for their objects the cementing of friendly inter-tribal relations, paying complimentary tributes to celebrated chiefs, the discussion of inter-tribal affairs, or the return of hospitality. The stores of food for the consumption of guests were all collected and piled either in huge mounds on the ground, or elevated on "wooden scaffolds. In the palmy days of the race guests at a great Hakari have been known to number 6000, and the number of guests and tally of the store of delicacies provided

was noised abroad among tho tribes and made the theme of boast'ng and envy for years afterwards. As a modern instance of native prodigity on such an occasion Thompson mentions a Hakari given at Matamata, on the Thamps, in 1836, at which an onlooker counted 8000 baskets of potatoes, 500,000 eels, 800 pigs, and 15 casks of tobacco !

Returning to the daily occupation, which, in times of peace, pleasantly filled the round of days for the ancient Maori, we may indicate netting, carving, thei fashioning of greenstoiu, the cutting and fitting of weapons as being peculiarly the pleasure of the old men, the labour of the \oung. The true sense of art which expressed itself -n tho desire to beaut fy all the common things of life was strongly developed in the ancient Maori. Much of his carved work was grotesque to the point of evil dreams made manifest — but not more grotesque than the hundred gargoyles of Notre Dame. Much of it is both gross and indelicate to civilised

minds, just as the actual expression of his myths and folklore is, but this does not arise from any undue animalism or grossness in his character, but simply from the fact that, living in a state of Nature, the primal passions and their expression were to him each one as simple and natural as the other. Entirely discarding then this element of Maori art, we cannot shut our eyes to the boldness of execution, and the subtle delicacy with which the forms of Nature were noted and reproduced, as in the well-known Pi^au pattern, which represents the curling inner fronds of the tree fern; less well known is the lovely shell spiral, and the conventionalised tawa leaf design, and the wave form.

Weapons, implements, toilette caskets to contain their treasure of head-dress feathers, greenstone, and shark's teeth,

all were objects of loving and patient enrichment. The ordinary dwellings, mere huts of grass and reeds, wer^ too perishable for decoration. Rather did the ancient Maori, communist to the backbone, expend himself in art as in all other things to the honour and glory of his tribe. His artistic labour then found its richest expression in the carving, painting, and reed work with which he beautified his Pataka, or food storehouses, Whare-puni, or village meeting house, and the whole structure of his huge war canoes — of which even the bailers (tata) were carved. New Zealanders are familiar with the great tau-ihu (figtire heads) and tau-rapa (stern ornaments) of these war canoes, for every museum has it 9 example or models, but I doubt if even the most Wvid imagination could successfully picture the tout ensemble of such a canoe fully manned with a great war party, the rhythmic dip of the oars flinging the spray behind ■ L hem as the tai tuku passed to and fro upon the thwarts between the rowers, giving the time, and urging on his men with exclamations, encouragement, a snatch of song, the ting of an ancient proverb, all beating out the time, and emphasised by gesture, attitude, and the sweep of his weapon. How the towering figure head at the prow, with gleaming eyes of pawa shell, and hair of wind-tossed feathers, loomed balefully through the Ata-po, the "morning darkness" in which the Brown SeaRover, faithful to long tradition, surprised his enemy ! The picture is too suggestive of a pandemonium of passions let loose, only to be slacked in blood and cruelty ; let us continue yet awhile the pleasant contemplation of the arts of peace.

The various carvings for some of the seed storehouses occupied many years, being of most elaborate design. Upon a background of intricate pattern grotesques of demi-gods or

of renowned ancestors, with attendant demons or familiars, were introduced with great profusion. All these figures, however, like the quaint little greenstone images (hei-tiki) worn round the neck, are intentionally imperfect. For example, they never have more than four — often only three — ■ fingers. The object of this is that whoever they may "commemorate," being imperfect, they cannot truly be said to "represent" him, and, therefore, any insult offered to the carved figure is frivolous and valueless. The elaboration bestowed on mere storehouses of food or seed appears at the first glance puzzling, until we remember that food and all pertaining to it was tapu (sacred). Then it becomes obvious that a sense of sacred obligation prompted these labours which, in their lavish disregard of time and toil, show us that the Maori of old no less than the monk of old, realised that "Life is short, but art is long." Many of the designs used in painting the rafters and panels of decorated houses were strikingly bold and effective in their endless juxtaposition of black, white-, and the all-sacred, all-cheering red.

Among every-day occupations we must not forget the" preparation of this same red paint, the distilling and scenting of perfumed oils for personal use, the practice of the art of tattooing, of which our artist has given some very fine illustrations, and the working of the much-coveted ponamu or greenstone. On this latter Mr Justice Chapman has written a veryinteresting monograph dealing with the whole art of working the greenstone. Concerning the fashioning of the well-known hei-tikis or neck pendants of greenstone that eminent authority, the Rev. J. W. Stack, says : "They were difficult to work, only the most skilful tohungas, such as could carve and tattoo, undertaking their manufacture/ These hei-tiki were not, as some people suppose, idols, nor were they representations of ancestors, as I have pointed out elsewhei'e, for the Maori, like the Maliommcdan, deprecated the actual presentation either in painting or carving of the individual. Rather were they "Memento Mori" souvenirs of the illustrious or beloved dead — rendered sacred by having been in actual contact with the sacred bodies of their levered ancestors Mr Stack considers that the custom of carving and wearing the hei-tiki was brought to Aotea-roa by the Hawaikian immigrants, and goes on to note that since his intercourse with the White man the Maori has deteriorated in working these "Memento Mori." All the best specimens are of very ancient workmanship Meres, axes, and ear-pendants required comparatively little skill in manufacture, and occupied the leisure hours of the old men. The tools used were of the' simplest description, so* simple that the results achieved with them point alike to an amount of leisure and patience which indicates long periods of unbroken tribal peace and security. Stone hammers for bruising and loosening the outer portions, stone rubbers to slowly wear down the

surface, finer ones to give the final polish, and a rude stonepointed drill were the only implements available to the ancient Maori.

Amusements for all ages weire plentiful. Children, wit'i tops, balls, kites, and swings, played in their simple fashion, and with all the ineradicable grace of childhood we may be sure, much the same games as our own children. Posture dances or hakas were a favourite amusement with both men aud women, and being frequently rehearsed were performed with exquisite time and rhythm. Of these dances the one bsst preserved by the modem Maori is the Poi dance o^' the women, in which the movements of their slender Lands swinging and whirling the little oval balls by their tasselled cords, is both graceful and pretty.

Music, in our acceptation of the term, was an unknown ait (o the ancient Maori, though all of his communal labours the hauling of canoes, and paddling, digging in the cuitivat ons, etc., were beguiled by songs with exclamatory or soothing choruses. Their solo songs were largely recitatives, their laments were chanted in monotonous minor cadences indescribably mournful, and inspired, one would imagine, by the slow cadence of wind-weary waves flung upon a lonely shore ; the rising wind among the tree®, the quaint long-drawn cries cf such birds as the weka. Large and small flutes (Rehu and Ivoauau) were made from the leg bones of the albatross 1 , or from the thigh bone of an enemy, the last being a refinement of the victor's savage lurt. Then there were the great Avar trumpets, and the shell and calabash trumpets used on various occasions, and large sounding boards (Paha) were used as a kind of gong in the pa.

The passion for ceremonial, which formed such a strong characteristic of the Maori race, found ample scope in hn burial rites. The obsequies of a chief or priest were encompassed with mysterious and symbolic rites — the burial of the ordinary citizen was a much simpler matter. The body of the priest or chief was laid in state with the head to the south, before being taken to the place of burial. All the blood relations of the deceased assembled, even to the youngest children ; the men and boys forming a long line on the right, the men nearest to the head of their departed kinsman, the women and girls forming a similar line on the left, and the priest, taking his place at the head of the corpse between the rows of people, began his solemn chant, assisting the soul in its flight heavenward :

"Climb up, Tawhaki !" he chanted, amid the smothered sobs of the mourners. " Climb up, Tawhaki, To the first Heaven, To the second Heaven, To the host of Tawhaki," etc.

Slowly then the priest placed in the left hand of the corpse a taro bulb, and chanted once more : " Dawn has come, food is eaten — The food of the thousands, to whom thou goest, To the many above, to the thousands above,

And all is calm."

Flax cords were then tied with a slip knot to the tassels of the flax mat in which the dead was enshrouded, and a cord was given to each boy and girl to hold while the priest

continued his chant. As the last word was uttered each child pulled the cord with a jerk that the soul might be freed from the body, nor remain hovering about, to bring misfortune on the relatives. After the burial the priest returned to the pa, but the bearers made their way to the nearest swamp, and, having caught a swamp sparrow, sent word to the priest, who at once joined them. Each person was then provided with a stick to which certain of the feathers were tied, and the priest, similarly equipped, went through further ceremonies and incantations, joined from time to time by the assembled men, who were thus freed from f he tapu consequent on touching the dead.

The dead of the common people were tied securely in a rough mat, and placed in a sitting position. Having placed a taro bulb in each lifeless hand the priest then chanted : " There is the seed, The seed lifted up : The seed by which you go To your many, To your thousands, To your sole lord. Clear the path to Paerau !"

Te Paerau was another name for Uranga-o-te-ra, the first shade of the underworld, and this incantation was supposed to ease the soul's descent thereto.

The final ceremonies necessary to the burial of a chief or priest varied with the tribe or the locality. Sometimes the body was hung in a primitive hammock among the trees, sometimes enclosed in a standing posture within a rude wooden obelisk, pierced with holes, and shaped something

like a canoe, until decomposition had sufficiently freed the bones to admit of their being cleaned and polished for their final interment. Sometimes the body, still dressed as at the laying in state, and wearing the precious greenstone ornaments, was placed in one of the elevated and covered platforms shown beside the burial obelidks in an illustration of "An ancient burying ground." Whatever method of temporary disposition was observed, it was encompassed with elaborate and rigid ceremonial, and — illustrative of the allpenetrating law of Tapu — when the body was taken away from the pa or kianga the fires were all extinguished at a signal given by the tohunga, lest food should be cooked a 4.,a 4 ., fires which had been burning while the dead lay awaiting burial.

When the second stage, the cleaning or hahu of the bones, was reached the hahunga or feast of the dead was held. To this ceremony kinsmen of all the hapus and inter-tribal connections were invited, and due preparations for creditable hospitality were made a long while beforehand. The refuse of the body being cremated, the bones were cleaned and deposited in their last secret resting place so that no enemy might discover and insult them. In some tribes it was customary for the eldest son to retain the last bone connecting the spine with the skull. This bone, known to us as the "atlas" bone, was called by them "tu-uta." When the eldest son died it was buried with him, and his "tu-uta" wa,s in turn preserved by his eldest son. Sometimes (as 1 in the case of Te Whara-whara te Raki, a chief who died 125 or 130 years ago in a Maori village situated on the beach near what is now the foot of Frederick street, Dunedin) the head of a dead chief was), after the hahunga, carried on a memorial pilgrimage to all his kinsmen far and near.

Whara-whara was an Ariki (chief) of such noble descent and high attainments as to be a "targata tapu" or holy person, and the. party of kinsmen who undertook the sacred duty of this memorial pilgrimage penetrated as far as Kaikoura in tho north and Murihiku in the south, greeted all along the route with reverential hahungas. In proportion to the sacred reverence shown to the heads of their own dead was the mocking and bitter degradation heaped on the heads of their enemies, every cruel and revolting insult conceivable being wreaked upon them. From the arrival of the earliest Hawtikimi immigrants i-n the land of their adoption the hind-hunger and the land-love have been dominant passion* with the Maori. Each chief as he arrived took vo*sesxion of a certain district or locality, which became the p. operty of himself and his follower*. The chief and his elder sons possessed superior rights in land as in other things, but beyond that expression of feudal rights all free persons, male and female, constituting the tribe, were joint possessors of the tribal territory, which was unalienable. The chiefs territorial rights came to him through his direct descent from the pioneer ancestor who fir at claimed it. Failing male representatives, land rights devoh-ed upon women : indeed, women occupied a pleasant and well-recognised position in communal affairs, their individual feminine influence on many eventful occasions in Maori history being duly recorded in ancient tradition and' moi m his(ory. Thompson says in his "Story of NewZealand" :

A .long (ho families of each tribe there were also lawsregarding landed property. Thus the cultivation of a patch of forest land renders it the property of those who cleared.

it, and this right descended from generation to generation. But this individual claim did not carry with it the individual right to dispose of it to Europeans It was illegal even for one family to plant in another's clearing without permission." The ancient Maori, conservative in his regard for birth and intellect, as evinced in the deference paid to the chiefs, priests, and women of rank, was still a democrat and communist in his tribal life. Each tribe governed itself — such government being dictated in higher matters by the law of Tapu as expressed by the priest, in smaller things bypublic opinion, as evinced at the meetings of the people. Certain well-defined laws, however, were common to all tribes, and constituted a national code; thus, an injury or insult inflicted by a member of one tribe on an individual of another tribe was resented as an insult offered to the whole tribe. Insults or injuries, however, as from man to man of the same hapu or tribe, were dealt with on that conception of justice which the ancient Maori, like the ancient Jew, regarded as final : "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." The argument was that since crimes were inevitable, compensation must be had for Them. "Every Maori," says Mr Stack, "was required to know by what title the land claimed by his tribe was held — whether by right of original occupation, conquest, purchase, or gift.*' Inter-marriages between hostile tribes — for here, too, love will still be lord of all — often involved the question of tribal fealty _in inextricable confusion. A man married into another tribe, still sympathised with his own people, and played the traitor to his wife's kinsmen ; and thus the page of national history is in many places nothing but one long, dark record of intrigue, treachery, revenge, and blood --led.