MAORI MEMORIES

Wairarapa Daily Times, 1 December 1933, Page 4

MAORI MEMORIES

(By J.H.S., for “The Daily Times.”)

NIU—DIVINATION.

- So many imaginative people recite fantastic fables of occult happenings, that from childhood I have regarded all such tales as the result of a disordered mentality. So earnestly and sincerely, however, have some old Maoris urged upon me the efficacy of the art of the tohunga and the wiles of makutu, and its allied mysteries of hypnotism, mesmerism, telepathy, water divining, etc., that I have taken every opportunity to prove, or rather disprove, their reality, at least among their Maori exponents. Though wo may still lay stranded on the shore of Doubt, yet must we preserve an open mind, for how many believed that prophet of two centuries ago who wrote: “Give to me a wire and I’ll whisper round the world.” Among scores of sincerely believed and apparently authentic cases from Mr Percy Smith and other reliable historians, these may be accepted:— A Bell Block Maori woman challenged the genuineness of a hunchback Maori boy’s alleged power of divination, and asked him to recover a ring stolen four years ago. In a state of hypnotism, he said: “You lost the ring; it was not stolen. It is on the roadside near the puriri, deeply overgrown with grass. Search three days.” On the third day it was found as indicated.

In June, 1917, a woman, Wini Kaika, of Otorohanga, when visiting Otalci, astonished the Maoris by her achievements. She discovered a spot where she declared there was a hidden store of pounamu—upon digging there, a block of* precious greenstone, covered with stones, earth and grass, was found. The well-known chief, Wharo Pouri, of Wellington, consulted a wise woman, Takarangi, as to a valued mere pounamu lost by his ancestor three generations ago. A large party of Maoris accompanied the searchers to Ngauranga, and in a spot on the hillside, covered with karamu ngaio and lcoromiko, she unearthed the mere wedged between rocks well beneath the surface.