TE AKA, ROOT OF THE SPIRIT WORLD

Te Ao Hou, June 1961, Page 41

TE AKA, ROOT OF THE SPIRIT WORLD It was rumoured—and the rumours are still believed by some people—that Puckey had chopped away Te Aka, the root to the spirit-world. This act would not be out of character. All the early missionaries, except the unfrocked Kendall and the unpopular Richard Taylor attacked in the most direct manner, any manifestation of so-called heathenism, burning carved houses, desecrating tapu places, if only to demonstrate to the Maori that the mana (the power and prestige) of the Christian religion was greater than that of the heathen. Mathews and Puckey, the two missionaries

of Kaitaia, were no exception to this rule. But Puckey did not cut the root. He himself describes the trouble his visit caused, and how the trouble was met by Te Paerata, his guide: During the time I was absent, great rumours were spread among the tribes that I had gone to cut away the Aka of the Reinga. Many angry speeches were made, and some said they would go and waylay us, as we were returning. It, in fact, roused all the affections of those who had any, for their old Dagon; while numbers who had begun to feel a little enlightened said ‘And what of it? It the ladder is cut away, it is a thing of lies, and the spirits never went there.’ On being asked, ‘What are you afraid of, having no place of torment to do to?’ some of the old men would touchingly say, ‘It is very well for you to have your Rangi (Heaven), but leave us the old road to our Reinga, and let us have something to hold on by, as we descend, or we shall break our necks over the precipice.’ Puckey and Te Paerata were intercepted by the chiefs of the Far North and their followers, who were in a most threatening mood. Te Paerata spoke for two hours, told them every detail of the journey and said they had not harmed the aka in any way; this was found to be so. The chiefs then let Puckey and Te Paerata return. The same pohutukawa tree that Puckey was supposed to have chopped is still there today, an insignificant thing growing in a cleft in the rock, but its endurance over the centuries on this barren place where nothing else grows is almost beyond nature, supernatural.