E—No. 7

LECTURES ON On reciting this the tide left the fish dry on the shore; he cut it up, and all the people joined in eating it; Whakatau having found that his fish was killed by Kea came to the South of New Zealand; when he saw the people assembled in their temple, he set it on fire, and caused to be consumed therein a thousand worshippers. The natives relate a story of two men and a woman having been taken up to heaven alive, in a spider's web, in consequence of their having pleased their gods with their virtuous actions. The names of the men were Takitaki and Rokuariro, that of the woman Rangiawatea. The native ideas of the first Paradise are very obscure. They believe there are three Heavens: the first is where the gods reside in which is a temple called Nahirangi. Men are created in the second heaven, where they reside until they are of mature age ; they then come down to the third heaven just above us, which we denominate the sky, and being near the sun, is warm, and abounds with beautiful lakes in which they amuse themselves with bathing: when there is a windy day in this heaven, the spray of the waves on the lakes breaks over the margin, and descends to earth in the shape of rain ; man when he has spent a certain time in this heaven is then born into the world, and at his death goes to the Reinga, or the future world, which is at the North end of New Zealand. The Reinga is a low point jutting out into the sea with a sandy beach below ; on the point stands a Pohutukawa tree, from which grew a root down to the beach; by that the spirits were supposed to descend to an opening below, which is the entrance to the Reinga. The Reinga is like a house partitioned off into apartments; the first one is the entrance, the second one is called Aotea, where mau loses or retains the buoyancy of his spirits which he had in this world: if his body has been hung up in a tree, and no pressure of earth has been on it, his spirit will be lively ; if, on the contrary, his body has been buried, his spirit will be dull and sluggish. Aotea is the West of the entrance. The next division of the Reinga is Te-uranga-o-te-ra to the East of the entrance, hereman becomes possessed of another but degenerate spirit. The next compartment is I-liku-toia, North of the entrance, where man is put through another process, which gives him a still more degenerate spirit. These three are, as it were, the first set of rooms in the Reinga: man then descends to Pouturi, the next lower apartment, where he becomes still weaker, and lastly he descends to the final apartment called Toke (which name means worm,) where he becomes a worm that returns to earth, and when a worm dies a man's being is ended. In making houses or stages, on which to keep kumaras, fern-root, or fish, they are built North and South, lest spirits in going to the Reinga should pass over them, which would cause the food to decay. As the kumara and fish are the offspring of the younger brothers of the gods by whom man was created, it is thought that if a spirit, on his way to the Reinga, pass over food thus stored, it would be rendered unfit for use ; and as these spirits always pass from South to North, the store-house and food are always ranged parallel to these points, to prevent the possibility of sucii an accident occurring. Such accidents, however, do sometimes take place ; and if this contact with spirits has not caused the food to decay, it is supposed the evidence of their transit will be found by marks of red ochre with which the garments of the spirits are died. Nothing thus marked was eaten. While we are speaking about the Reinga, we may as well relate the supposed origin of the Moon. Two women, who were desirous of looking into the abode of spirits, after preparing themselves with dried kumaras, went to the point, and descended by the root of the Pohutukawa tree. Entering the cave, they journeyed for some distance in the dark; at length they perceived the glimmering of light at a distance, and proceeding onwards, saw in Aotea three old grey-headed spirits, sitting around a fire composed of three pieces of wood. As this was spiritual fire, they desired to obtain a piece of it; so one of them took the dried kumaras, and went up to the old souls, who were so much astonished at the sight of a living female that she had sufficient time to snatch one of the fire-brands and run off with it, in return leaving her kumaras, for them to taste once more the good things of Earth. Their astonishment was so great that they could not follow the thief at once, so that she had time to get near the entrance before they pursued her. The other woman had made good her retreat, and the thief was taking her last step out, when one of the old folk caught her by the heel. She, not wishing to lose such a prize as the sacred fire she had obtained, collected all her strength and threw the brand whirling up into the clouds ; it went up so high that it stuck in the sky, and has remained there ever since as the moon. The reason why the moon is not seen every night is this : Maui, when he had made tho sun go a little slower by his beating him, being still unsatisfied, followed the sun one evening and caught him, and tied him with a line to the moon, thus making the moon go after the sun, and staying the sun somewhat more in his progress. Soon after this, Maui quarrelled with his kindred, and being desirous of revenge, he puts his hand before the moon at times to keep them in darkness. They account for the tides in the following manner : There is, in the deepest part of the ocean, a god, son of Tangaroa called Parata, who is such a monster that ho only breathes twice in twenty-four hours ; when he inhales his breath it is ebb tide, and when he exhales his breath it is flood tide. We will now mention how certain ceremonies were performed. The New Zealanders had no marriage rite ; yet there was a custom amongst some of them called Pa Kuha, which consisted in giving a woman to be the property of her suitor ; and was usually done when the people were assembled together, in a set speech, by the relatives of the female (especially her brothers and uncles), the father and mother taking little or no part in the proceeding. They had also ancient forms of baptism, the ceremonies of which were these : Soon after the birth of a child, the priests made a number of clay balls, setting them in a row on the ground, and