MAORI RELIGION

Taranaki Daily News, 21 January 1935, Page 2

MAORI RELIGION

‘GLEAMS OF INSPIRATION’ DIFFICULTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. COMPARISON BETWEEN THE TWO. “What is religion? What is mythology? Does not one insensibly merge into the other?” asked Mr. Johannes C. Andersen in an address to the teachers’ summer school at New Plymouth on Saturday on Maori religion. To many all religion was mythology, Mr. Andersen said. What to the Greeks was what was called their mythology—was it not their religion? The question arose whether the Christian religion in the course of time would not become mythology? It appeared to be in the process of doing so. Hell, at any rate, was not the definite, if undefinable, place it was when the first missionaries came to New Zealand in 1814. The Christian had his schools of theology and the Maori his schools of learning, the whare-wananga, the object of which was the preservation and accurate teaching of all desirable knowledge. A study of the teaching of his houses of learning showed the Maori to have been highly appreciative of learning in the best sense. As all knowledge was from the gods everything connected with the school was tapu in the strictest sense. Those who held the Bible in some veneration could understand the veneration of the Maori for his teachings, and his shrinking into himself when he was told, as he was callously, that it was all superstition and should be ruthlessly discarded.

The most intensely tapu matter was that relating to the supreme being. When the Rev. Samuel JVlarsden visited New Zealand in 1819 for the second time he recorded discussions with various Maoris about their beliefs, and the astuteness and penetration of the so-called savage often baffled the college-trained missionary. The account in Genesis concerning the creation differed considerably from the Maori version. Tire Maori held his faith by tradition and had as much ground for it as the Christian. Unfortunately the Polynesians had come in contact with a people as savage as the savages. The great pity was that the Polynesians had far more experience with the ignoble civilised man than with the noble. Was it any wonder that their lofty thinkers held aloof? ORAL LEARNING. The Maori had all his knowledge orally, just aS the Christian did, until within the last few hundred year, and it was this that made the whare-wana-nga such an important university. The original school was known as Rangiatea, and according to tradition was situated in the uppermost of the twelve upper worlds. That was to say that all knowledge, all wisdom was from God. Rangiatea was sacred to 10, the supreme being, and was guarded by his attendants. It was significant that when the Rev. Hadfield built the first Maori church on the mainland opposite Kapiti the name proposed for it by Te Rauparaha and Rangihaeata was Rangiatea. The houses of learning were scattered throughout Polynesia, the names of many having been preserved through the centuries. The highest class, including the higher forms of religious teaching, ceremonial connected with the enlightenment of many and with the preservation of his physical, mental and spiritual welfare, was taught from sunrise till mid-day. The second class from mid-day to sunset related to all kinds of tribal history. At sunset a third class dealing with black magic was begun. In some districts all learning was at night.. Only those possessed of retentive memories could become novitiates. The great airn was to transmit the ancient lore unchanged, the penalty exacted by the gods from a tohunga for making a mistake or omitting a word in a karakia being death.

Part of the third receptacle of knowledge was the power of makutu, witchcraft; and the price the scholar sometimes had to pay for the acquisition of this knowledge was heart-searching. “He might be told to cause the death of a flying bird, to wither a living tree, to reduce to powder a pebble held in the hand, or he might be told to cause the death of a person, sometimes a slave, sometimes a relative, sometimes the very teacher who had taught him; and had. he assimilated the lore with which he had been endowed, these acts could be performed by him, and tradition says they were so performed. POSSIBILITY OF MIRACLES. “Nor, if we admitted the possibility of the occurrences we regard as miracles, are we able to deny that the Polynesian may have possessed such power? It is a fact that our early bishop of New Zealand saw a tohunga turn a withered tipalm blade green; and to most people the fire-walking ceremony of Fiji and other Pacific islands is a mystery and' a miracle.” There was apparently no teaching as to the origin of 10. He was the Parentless, the Eternal, He caused the existence of all realms and of all beings. He was of an entirely beneficent nature, and while he had no connection with evil, and could be invoked only with regard to welfare of the people, yet all things flowed from him and evil came into existence. It, too, must have flowed from the highest upper world, Te Toi-o-nga-rangi. Nor was this any more inconsistent than in the Christian religion as it was known to-day. Gleams of inspiration were not lacking in the Maori teachings, but gleams could reveal only portions of the truth. Like children they uttered fragments of truths but, not knowing the key, they could not piece them together. One should not conclude that the key was once in their possession and the great portions of a philosophical system had been lost to us, the late comers. It might equally well be—more probably was—that the system was never complete; that the key was never in their possession any more than it was in ours. Of certain writers well informed Maoris had said, “They put thoughts into our minds that we never had; the old fellows had never evolved all that philosophy, but never mind, it won’t hurt to make us out bet- ; ter than we are.” i

The Maori was right, said Mr. Andersen. It would not hurt; quite the contrary. There was no doubt at all that the birth of philosophy and religion had taken place among the Polynesians. The unfolding must have followed slowly in the ordinary course of nature. The name Te Reinga was applied to the Maori netherworlds, of which one version said there were 12, and ine name Rerengawairua to the entrance. In New Zealand Rerengawairua, the Leaping Place of the Spirit, was at the extremity of the North Island. “The Maori was accustomed to regard his gods with fear if not with what was by the pakeha called reverence; his Supreme Deity, 10, he did regard with such reverence that his name was seldom spoken even by the tohunga, and never by the common people. Here came a new and dominant race, with whom the name of their deity was ever on their lips, and fbo often in profanation. “To the Maori, food was a contamination to tapu; food must not be brought near anything tapu; the head, being the most sacred part of the body, must especially be guarded. Yet here was a

people who would barter the head of their sovereign, as represented on coins, for food. More, in what they called the holy sacrament they professed to eat the body and drink the blood of their Christ —a degradation the Maoris themselves reserved for their enemies! What a volte face the Maori must have made before he could be free of what the missionaries chose to term savage superstition!

“He was taught that his traditional lore, his reverence for tapu, his conceptions of creation and the origin of man were foolishness, and was bidden unlearn them—harder still, forget them—and learn other , traditional lore which to him must have , seemed as unreasonable as his own was \ stigmatised; was bidden conceive and reverence a new deity, yet one endowed with many of the attributes of his own ( deposed deities, war-loving, powerful, . jealous—more vindictive even than his { worst, for he would condemn erring mortals to endless torment. Such a character was possessed by none of the Maori ' deities. Hell was a new concept to the Maori; and at the same time he was taught that this relentless God was a God of love. “He was taught Christian worship; was taught to keep one day sacred, when no work of any kind must be done r and all thought of war laid aside; and when, obeying this command, he attended service during the siege of the Ruapekapeka pa, the beleaguering pakeha, less observant of the Sabbath, assaulted the pa during divine service, and the Maori found that the. pakeha God had delivered him into the hands of the pakeha. SANCTITY OF THE CHURCH. “Again, during the Heke wars in the north, the Maori assumed that the church at least would be regarded by the fighting pakeha as sacred; but when it was learned that the Maori wounded had been laid in the church, the church was bombarded by the man-o’-war in the bay. In contradistinction it may be noted that during the whole of the Maori wars, until it came to the final Hauhau fanatacism, churches and all religious' buildings were invariably respected by the Maori. “Can the Maori bewilderment be wondered at? Can it be wondered that when he turned to the Pakeha God it was to the God of the Old Testament and not the God of the New that he turned? He began to see that conversion to this new religion was politic. It was evidently the God of the pakeha who was responsible for the pakeha’s wealth • in' goods and

arms, who was responsible for the pakeha’s power. As his own gods had 1 had to be placated, so the pakeha God ' was 1 one to be placated even more than the Maori gods. Yet at all times he seemed to favour the pakeha. “Even the Pai-marire religion, better known in its later fanatical development 1 as Hauhauism, was but a modification of Christianity. The Maori tapu had been ' swept away, and the Maori social system ' disintegrated. Yet the Maori felt that the religious cult of the pakeha must be observed, but modified in a way to suit the needs of the Maori. As taught by the missionary it seemed to result altogether in favour of the pakeha, so justification for the modifications were found in the Scriptures, and the new cult evolved, almost on the text, ‘Blessed be the Lord piy strength, who teacheth my hands to war and my fingers to fight.’ Justification for his fanaticism, for his then mercilessness, he could find in the very Scriptures that told him of the God of love. LAST HOPE FAILS. “The Maori was at bay; it was his last hope; and his last hope failed him; it resulted in' more confiscation; he saw extermination as his lot in this life— j what wonder if he welcomed annihila- j tion in the life to come? It was a de- j pressing picture, but in a measure the j Maori rallied from that heart-breaking j time. In due course he saw that what. the missionaries taught was the belief j and the faith of the better class of j pakeha; but he also saw that the better- j class came in very small numbers compared with the other. What reparation could be made—what replication should be made by the son of a king? It was hard to say. I “The other side of the picture was that j the missionaries first sent were such as I could inspire in the Maori little confid- I ence, little respect; it was not until Henry Williams came that the Maori found a man who could fight like them- v selves, who did not fear to fight, who 1 without hesitation would oppose himself c not only to a warrior spoiling for a fight but to a war party—and quell them with - word and bearing and without weapon. He could fight, but knowing the folly and aimlessness of it, would not. The Maori was a reasonable man, and many a time Williams reasoned him into peace, so that . in the course of time the very presence of that missionary could calm a threatening tempest, could turn the purpose of an angry man. “At the time that Williams lay dying, two tribes of the district decided on a „ fight, and fixed the day for the battle. Williams died, and his funeral was fixed for the same day. So affected were the Maoris, and so well did they know what Williams would have wished, that instead of engaging in the fight the rival chiefs attended the funeral, shook hands F and made peace over the grave. “Wiremu was a good man,’ they said. ‘He found the Maori a hard stone, but he broke it.’ ” Mr. Anderson concluded with a story which showed how the Maori, though ordinarily he did not court death, had I no fear of it.