Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Maori Religion and Mythology Part 1

Ritual Performances pertaining to Marriage

Ritual Performances pertaining to Marriage

Though there was much of ceremony connected with birth among the Maori folk, the same cannot be said with regard to marriage. There were certain ceremonial meetings, visits, and presentations, but there was nothing that could be called a religious rite save in connection with the aristocratic form of marriage. When such a function was observed among the "best families" of Maoriland, a ceremonial feast termed the umu kotore was held, and on the same day a priest recited over the couple certain charms or invocations. One of these was repeated with a view to preserving the welfare of the subjects, and to ward off all evil influences; another imparted mana to the ceremony; and yet another, styled the ohaoha, was almost equivalent to a blessing—it invoked a condition of fruit-fulness for the young wife. The ritual repeated in order to join the pair was called whakapiri.

There were also a few other rites connected with marriage, such as the atahu and toko and miri aroha. The toko had for its object the divorce of a married couple, while the atahu was a kind of white page 367magic carried out on the lines of suggestion and sympathetic magic through a medium. That medium might be either animate or inanimate. Atahu is a word that denotes a love-charm, and includes the performance of a ceremony that accompanied it. The term iri is sometimes used in a similar sense, but I doubt if an old-time Maori would describe it as a synonym, inasmuch as it is sometimes employed in other senses, as to bring to sight an absent person. Some writers think that it was used as denoting some such influence as hypnotic power.

By means of the atahu rite an errant wife or husband was caused to return. It was also resorted to by a man who wished to influence a woman in his own favour; it was even said to be effective in overcoming dislike on the part of a woman. In such a case as the last an expert would take some article that would serve as a medium, and recite his atahu charm over it in order to render it effective. This object had then to be placed in some position where it would be in contact with, or close to, the woman, perhaps under her pillow. Such contact would cause the medium to do its part effectively, and that woman would henceforth regard favourably the man she had disliked. The most interesting form of atahu was that in which a living bird was employed as a medium. This bird was despatched as an influencing medium; and we are told that it was always a miromiro (North Island tit) that was so employed. A charm was repeated over the bird and it was despatched on its errand. It would fly straight to its objective, be that person ever so distant, and alight on his or her head. That person would at once be impelled to rise and proceed straight to the sender of the mediumistic bird. To suppose the case of a woman whose husband had left her, her course would be to apply to one of the tohunga, male or female, who dealt with such matters. This adept would take her to a stream in the evening, repeat an atahu charm as he sprinkled her with water, whereupon he would see the shadowy form (wairua) of her errant husband standing beside her. The woman was then told to go home, that all was well, and that her husband would soon be with her. It remained for the adept to despatch the bird in quest of the absent husband.

Hamiora Pio, of Te Teko, described a form of atahu to me in which the operator waited until a wind was blowing from him towards the home of the person to be affected. He would then proceed with his ceremony. Taking up a feather with his left hand, he passed it under his left thigh, and then, holding it up in his advanced hand, he recited his charm. As he finished his recital page 368he tossed the feather into the air. Presumably the wind was supposed to bear the feather to the subject.

An east coast account of the atahu is as follows: A person would apply to a priest to cause a wife or husband to return home. The adept bids the applicant expectorate into a shell. He takes the shell in his right hand and wades into the stream until the water reaches his navel, when he faces the place of sunrise and repeats his charm:—

Tenei au he tipua, he tawhito
He ukiuki ki a koe, e Te Ihorangi … e.
Tenei au he pia, he uriuri nou
Tenei tama no—[Name repeated]
Tenei te hau ko taku hau
Tenei te hau ko te hau o—[Name of applicant]
Tenei to hau ko te hau Paraweranui
Hei whiu mai i a koe ki tai kainga
Tenei to hau ko Tahu-makaka-nui
Hei whiu mai i a koe ki tai kainga
Tenei to hau ko Huru-mawake
Hei whiu mai i a koe ki tai kainga
Tenei to hau ko Huru-nuku
Hei whiu mai i a koe ki tai kainga
Ko to manawa, ko te manawa o—[Name of applicant]
Tenei to manawa ko tuku manawa
Tu hikitia, tu hapainga; to ara ko te ara o Tane-matua
Tu hikitia, tu hapainga; to ara ko te ara o Tiunga-rangi
Tu hikitia, tu hapainga; to ara ko te ara o Haronga-rangi
Ka tau ana koe Mahora-nui-atea
Ka tau ana koe ko to whare ko te ahuru mowai
Ki tenei tahu nau … e … i.

Having finished his recital, the priest releases the shell on the surface of the water and allows it to float away. The account goes on to say that the shell would float away up-stream until lost to sight. The adept then says to the applicant, "Go, return to your home. Your spouse will return to you." Whether the "up-stream" is a mistake or not I cannot say. It is possible that the powers of the adept were supposed to be equal to the task of making the shell float up-stream. Or was it a tidal river?

We have on record an account of a man employing a sea-shell as a love-messenger, as related by Colonel Gudgeon. He uttered an atahu charm over the shell at Titirangi, the high hill near Gisborne. The power of that charm caused the shell to make a long sea-journey to Opape, where it put itself in the way of the much-desired woman. When she picked it up the contact had a remarkable effect on her; she became more and more restless, until impelled to go to the man who desired her, a far and rough journey. Another such story tells of a hawk being employed as a messenger, and the bird affected the woman by dropping a feather upon her. Yet another story, related by Tunui-a-rangi, page 369gives an account of a man so influencing a distant woman by means of the iri charm alone; no form of medium or messenger is mentioned. All the man did was to wait until the wind was blowing from his home towards that of the woman, when he ascended an adjacent hill and recited his charm, the result of which was highly satisfactory to him. Fornander has recorded similar acts of the tohunga of the Sandwich Isles.

In vol. 20 of the Journal of the Polynesian Society is given an account of a performance of the umu atahu or atahu rite by a man named Te Rangi-tau-marewa, who, on a visit to Ripiro, fell in love with a woman named Te Hana. He managed to filch a thrum from one of her garments, and used this as a medium over which to recite his love-charm. After his departure for his home the woman was compelled to follow him, and this journey included five miles of swimming, though with two resting-places in that distance.

Occasionally a rite was performed in order to divorce a married couple, and this was called toko. Another expression employed is miri aroha (love-effacing), and this term was often applied to a clandestine ceremony. If an expert was asked by a woman to "efface" her affection for her husband, he would conduct her to the waterside, the wai tapu, or ceremonial waters of the village community. Here he would take from her the ahua, or immaterial semblance of her affection, after he had sprinkled water on her, and, of course, the act was accompanied by the repetition of a charm. The action was a curious one; he just touched her body with his fingers as though picking something from it, but brought away nothing material. Through the agency of the charm and this imaginary medium he would succeed in "effacing" the affection of the woman. "Ka miria tona aroha, ara ka horia atu" as the Maori puts it. The form of charm repeated was a singular one:—

Toko te rangi
Tu ke Rangi, tau ke Papa-tuanuku.
Nga rakau i te ngahere te homai mo to kiri
Kia tutu, kia wewehi mokinokino.
Nga otaota i te ngahere te homai mo to kiri
Kia tutu, kia wewehi mokinokino.
Nga ongaonga i te ngahere te homai mo to kiri
Kia tutu, kia wewehi mokinokino.

Herein the couple are called upon to separate as sky and earth separated in long-past ages, while the nettles and trees and plants of the forest are called upon to cause the woman's skin to be as "quills upon the fretful porcupine" in the presence of her husband—that is, to cause her to dislike him. Another account describes this rite as being performed over both man and wife at the same time.

page 370

I have a note concerning a stone of peculiar form at Matahiia, east coast. It is said that this stone possesses, or did possess, certain innate powers, for we are told that the miri aroha rite, or something akin to it, was performed at it. If a woman desired to leave her husband and prevent any recurrence of her affection for him, all she had to do was to go and lay her hands upon that stone. Doubtless she would recite a charm at the same time. Now, this stone has another peculiarity about it: a hole in it has been plugged by means of driving a piece of stone into it, the plug being then smoothed off, perhaps by a rubbing process, to the level of the main stone. This part is called the pito by natives, and this probably explains the plugged hole. My informant was puzzled by the term pito, but remarked that Mr. T. S. Williams, of Kaharau, has a similar stone, and that Mr. Kemp stated that it was a practice of the natives of those parts to bore a hole in a post and plug it up with a piece of wood: this also they styled a pito. Now, these plugged holes illustrate an old native method of disposing of the umbilical cord (pito, iho) of an infant, and it was probably the pito contained in the plugged hole that imparted mana to the stone utilized in the miri aroha ceremonial. Some years ago the Auckland Museum obtained from the east coast a carved figure that had such a plugged hole in it. On extracting the plug there was found a dried-up pito in the bottom of the hole, which hole had been bored with an auger.

In native songs we often encounter such expressions as the following: Wehea ki te wai, kia hemo ake ai te aroha i a au. In such words the singer expresses his or her desire that the miri aroha rite be performed over him or her at the waterside, so as to ease the feeling of affectionate longing for an absent one or regret for the loss of a friend.