Miscellaneous Rites

We have already scanned some of the peculiar ceremonies performed by travellers in order to protect their life-principle. There are a few other matters of interest that may be alluded to in connection with travelling. For example, when settling in a new land it was a Polynesian custom to perform a singular ceremony in order to introduce, as it were, the mana of their gods, to placate or render harmless those of the new land, and to avert any evil influences that might pervade the new home. A stone termed a whatu, or whatu kura, often figured in this ceremony, and seems to have represented the welfare of the people and the mana of their gods; the physical and spiritual welfare of the people were bound up in it. It was a talismanic object, and apparently a form of mauri. Only a priest of high standing, of the amokapua, or pouwhenua, or tohunga ahurewa grade could conduct the above rite, which was held to be one of the highest importance. A modified form of this rite would be performed by a single person. In the mythical story of the coming of Tarawhata from Hawaiki we are told that when he came to land at Tauranga he proceeded to "purge himself of any evil influence due to the new land." In this ceremony he used some seaweed as an offering, as was customary in functions connected with the ocean.

A common belief among our native folk is that, by employing certain charms, land or water may be contracted or drawn out—that is, that a path or journey may be shortened or lengthened by such means. Hence travellers made frequent use of these useful charms, which served the same purpose as the hoa tapuwae already explained, and doubtless with less fatigue to the traveller. I remember my worthy neighbour Ngahooro, of Ngati-Mahanga, assuring me that in his youthful days he had walked from Te Whaiti to Taupo in a marvellously short space of time, by reciting a charm that caused the land to contract. This elasticity of land in pre-European days must have been a boon to travellers. Presumably its resilient qualities would cause it to resume its former proportions or dimensions after the traveller had passed over it. But here a question intrudes itself. We know that land could also be "elongated" by page 386means of employing a certain karakia. Let us imagine the case of two persons, one a traveller desirous of contracting certain lands, another wishful of lengthening them: what about it? I can only surmise that it would resolve itself into a question of mana; the one possessing the greatest mana would win the day. However, the absurdity of these things never seemed to be noted by the Maori.

In the legend of Whakitapui, of Ngati-Ruanui, we are told that when she left her husband and fled to Whanganui she "drew out" the ocean by means of a magic spell, so that her husband would be delayed in pursuing her in his canoe. She also recited the matapou spell in order to prevent canoes passing over the ocean, to render them immovable. Thus her husband was compelled to follow her by land, on foot. She repeated a hoa tapuwae charm to hasten her own footsteps, and a matapou to delay her husband's progress should he pursue her by land. Meanwhile he was doing the same thing—employing both charms to enable him to catch up to her. This contest ended in the woman reaching Whanganui some time before the pursuing husband. When he arrived, however, her brief advantage in time had enabled her to find a new mate, and so all ended happily.

A considerable number of ceremonial performances and charms pertained to fishing—and, indeed, we must look upon such functions as religious observances. It is shown elsewhere that mauri or talismanic shrines were employed in order to protect the life-principle of fish, their fertility and general welfare, thus bringing fish under the protection and care of the gods. A great number of singular superstitions, beliefs, curious practices, omens, &c., are encountered in connection with fishing and net-making. Take the simple case of a man going afishing with a new line, not previously used. His companions would not cast a line until he had caught a fish with his new one. As he secured the bait on the hooks he spat on it, which act seems to have had a like significance the world over. He then coiled up the line and passed it over his left leg and back under the left thigh, after which he cast his line over the left side of the canoe as he faced the prow. As the line ran out he held it in his left hand and scooped up water with his right hand and cast it against the line. On returning to shore he took the first fish caught with his new line, and the bracken or other herbage that he had used as a seat in the canoe, to the tapu place of the village. He generated fire by the hika process and burned the bracken. At this fire he roasted a portion of the gills of the fish, taken from its right side, which he then page 387held up in his hand and waved to and fro, at the same time calling to his dead male forbears that here was food for them. This was a whangai or offering. The other portion of the gills of the fish was served in a similar manner and offered to the spirits of his defunct female relatives. The fish he then hung up at the tuahu as an offering to the gods. These operations were accompanied by chanted formulae that have not been collected. Fishermen possessed a number of charms to repeat when fishing, and which were believed to bring good luck. Even when setting a pot or trap for crayfish or eels charms were repeated.

At Taupo, when the inanga season opened, some of the fish from the first net hauled were deposited at the tuahu as an offering to the god Rongomai. A taumaha rite was performed, and the ceremonial feast that accompanied it was cooked in five different ovens. The contents of one was for the chief priest only; that of another for the woman who was employed in tapu-removing ceremonial; another was for the assistant priest, another for the fishers, and the last for the bulk of the people. To neglect these ceremonies was to bring poor luck to fishers.

The taumaha is a charm repeated over firstfruits of birds, fish, &c. Like the whakau, it removes tapu restrictions, abolishes possible harmful influences. In the Nukuoro dialect taumaha seems to denote a ritual feast. At Wallis Island taumafa is "to eat," and taumafaanga "a feast." At Samoa it means "to eat," and "food."

All fishing-canoes were under tapu when out at sea, and so no food might be taken in them; hence it must have been a poor lookout for those who were driven out to sea by winds rising suddenly, a thing that occasionally happened.

When at work net-makers employed a brief charm, which they occasionally repeated. In some districts, at least, any place where a new net was being made was under strict tapu, no person being allowed to trespass thereon. One of the fish first taken in a new net was placed at the tuahu as an offering to the gods. The depositor recited a charm as he did so. The fires or ovens wherein food was cooked for the ceremonial feast are often alluded to as ahi parapara, and many charms were employed in connection with nets, traps, ceremonial functions, and all the activities of fishing.

Of ritual connected with the ocean we encounter, apart from that connected with fish, such ceremonies as were performed by voyagers, and charms employed by individuals. Some of the latter are singular effusions. For instance, we are assured that, in olden days, if a canoe was capsized at sea, a person possessed of the page 388necessary mana could procure assistance by calling upon the monsters of the deep, real and mythical. These would at once come to the assistance of the distressed ones, and either convey the canoe ashore or take the people on their backs and so carry them to land. One of these appeals preserved in my notebooks contains requests to a number of real and supposed ocean denizens, as "Ruamano e! Kawea au ki uta ra" ("O Ruamano! Convey me to land").

The taniwha, or monsters of the ocean and of rivers and lakes, are said to have frequently punished those who had transgressed the laws of tapu. Whenever such a creature showed a desire to attack a person, the latter could avert the danger by means of a simple rite termed whakaeo taniwha, already explained in this chapter. The awa moana was a rite to calm the waves of the ocean and smooth the course of a vessel. The rotu moana was a similar charm, and some of these intoned compositions are of considerable length. All such performances are dealt with in detail in a monograph on Maori canoes.

One very singular performance at sea was connected with certain sacred ceremonial stone toki (adzes). These implements are de-cribed as he toki poipoi ki nga atua (adzes waved to the gods). When a rough sea was encountered by voyagers, a priestly expert possessed of such an adze would produce it, intone a long and special karakia, and then make a motion with the stone tool as though chopping at the waves. This extraordinary act is said to have been highly efficacious: it subdued the angry waves; it severed them and caused them to break up and be scattered (Ka motumotu nga tai, ka wawa noa atu, ka marara noa atu). It is difficult to conceive the origin of such a singular act as the above, though, possibly it is no more extraordinary than some features of the ancient double-axe cult of Asia.

Certain charms were recited by persons who had to engage in a long swim, and we are assured that they increased the endurance of a person to a marvellous extent. When Te Rau-o-te-rangi swam from Kapiti Island to the mainland in 1824 with her infant on her back, she succeeded because these strength-giving charms had been repeated over her, or by her.

Maori faith in their priests, as possessing power over the elements, should not, perchance, surprise us, for I myself have known our Christian priests pray for rain. The tohunga maori could, we are told, cause rain to fall, and also cause rain to stop and bring a clear sky. The following charm (given by Tuta Nihoniho, page 389of Ngati-Porou) was recited in order to cause rain to cease falling:—

E ua, e te uaua; e mao, e te maomao.
Tihore mai i runga, tihore mai i raro
Koi mate nga tamariki a te ika nui
E kiko! E kiko e.

(Rain, O rain, cease raining, fair sky! Clear away from above, clear away from below, lest the offspring of the ika nui be distressed.)

The expression ika nui is doubtful; it may refer to the earth. E kiko calls for a blue, unclouded sky.

To stop rain by means of a charm is described as he tua i te rangi, the word tua meaning "to effect by means of a charm", hence we find it in such expressions as tua tamariki, tuamoe, tuapa, and tuapana. The first and third of these have already been explained; the tuamoe is a charm to cause sleep, and the tuapana another to facilitate childbirth.

Many of these charms are difficult to render into English, and in many cases where one can give a translation it seems to contain no sense, or has no bearing on the subject. In 1852 Te Taniwha, of Hauraki, gave the following as a charm recited for the purpose of ensuring a fine day on the morrow. As a person repeated it he scratched the house-wall with his right hand:—

Rakuhia mai
Rakuhia mai te korokoro o Rangitoto
Kia rakuhia
Kia ao rawa ake te ra
He tio, he keho, he hauhunga.

It is difficult to see any sense in the opening lines of this effusion—"Scratch, scratch the throat of Rangitoto, that it may be scratched." If Rangitoto is the extinct volcano of that name in the Hauraki seas, why should its throat be scratched? The concluding lines are more to the point—"That the day might dawn with ice, cold, and frost." A frosty morn usually betokens a fine day.

The rite to cause rain to cease is called puru rangi (sky-plugging).

Not only were tohunga credited with the power to raise or lay wind, but also an expert of sufficient mana could cause most violent convulsions of nature, severe storms, and nerve-racking tempests. One way of allaying a wind was to use insulting expressions towards it, as in the following formula used by the Tuhoe folk:—

Pokokohua, poko-ko-hua!
Riri … e! Riri … e!
Riri te rangi i runga nei
Riri nga hau.

Simple ceremonies and charms were employed in order to dispel fog or mist, as by travellers, also to dispel frost; and other such interferences with natural phenomena were practised.

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Te Taniwha also gave the following formulae used in former times by his people for the purpose of raising the four winds:—

• Charm to raise a North Wind—

  Hau nui, hau roa, hau titiparerarera
  Kotia mai Hauturu kia kau i te wai.

  (Hauturu=Little Barrier Island.)

• Charm to raise a South Wind—

  Hau nui, hau roa, hau pukerikeri
  Kotia mai Kohukohu-nui
  Kotia mai kia kau i te wai.

  (Kohukohu-nui = A hill at the Thames.)

• Charm to raise a East Wind—

  Hau nui, hau roa, kotia mai Taranga
  Kia kau i te wai
  Moi, moi, kia kau i te wai.

  (Taranga = An island.)

• Charm to raise a West Wind—

  Hau nui, hau roa, hau pukerikeri
  Kotia mai i Rangitoto kia kau i te wai.

  (Rangitoto = Island near Auckland.)

It seems probable that the preposition i should be inserted before the place-name in the first three of the above charms, as it appears in the fourth. The wind is, in each case, called upon to blow from the quarter in which the place mentioned is situated, and in each case also an intense, continuous, and violent wind is demanded.

Another such wind-raising charm is the following, the phrasing of which runs much on the same lines as that of the above:—

Hau nui, hau roa, hau wawahi waka
Hau pupuhi puputara ki uta
Hau titiparera, tipitipia mai
A runga o Whakaari ki te wai
Haehaea mai nga kakahu o to tupuna … e.

Puputara=a shell (Septa tritonis); Whakaari = White Island.

(Intense wind, continuous wind, canoe-destroying wind; wind that blows the puputara ashore. Fierce wind, cut off the summit of Whakaari [and hurl it] into the waters. Rend the garments of your ancestor.)

Charms were employed when a person's hair was being cut, when a stone adze was being sharpened or used, in house-building, canoe-making, tree-felling, &c. In fact, there were few activities in native life with which charms were not associated.

The following karakia is a good specimen of the higher type of Maori ritual of olden times, inasmuch as it appeals to the superior gods and also to the Supreme Being; hence it may be classed as an invocation, a composition much superior to the shamanistic formulae employed by tohunga of a lower class in connection with ordinary everyday matters. It contains many archaic, cryptic, and sacerdotal page 391expressions known and employed only by the few whose duty it was to acquire and conserve the esoteric lore of the Maori people:—

Tenei ahau he uri, he pia nou, e Io … e!	E Rehua! E Tupai … e!
Tenei ahau te turuki atu nei ki a koe	Tenei taku aro, he aro no nga tahito
He aro nui, he aro tea, he aro tipua, he aro nou, e Io … e!	He aro no nga tipua, he aro nou, e Tane i te pu!
Heue, heue te tawhito nuku	Tamaua i tua, tamaua i roto taua
Heue he tawhito rangi nou, e Io!	Tamaua ki to pia
Tenei au ka tupe atu i te uruuru matua,	Ko te ueue tipua, ko te ueue tawhito,
I te uruuru tawhito, i te uruuru tipua	Ko te ueue whatu kura
I te uruuru apa rangi, i te apa rangi nou e Io … e!	Ko te ueue atua nou, e Io-matangaro … e!
Ko te tupe rangi, ko te tupe nuku,	Tamaua i roto i taku aro
Ko te tupe na Tupai	Ko te whatu moana, ko te whatu nau, e Tane!
Ko te ueue nuku, ko te ueue rangi
Ki tahatu o rangi huru nuku, huru rangi	Tane te wananga matua
Ki a koe, e Tane Ruatau … e!	He uruuru tipua, he uruuru tawhito
Tenei to aro, he aro noku, e Ruatau!	He uruuru atua nou, e Ruatau, e Tane!
	Ki to pia, ki to oro, he tama nau, e Io … e!