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The Ancient History of the Maori, His Mythology and Traditions. Awatea, Taranaki, Nga-Ti-Hau Nga-Ti-Rua-Nui [Vol. VIII, English]

Chapter 7

page (45)

Chapter 7

First part: Tide of the inner part
Unravelled from the tangle
Tide of the inner part
Of the younger brother,
Tide of the heart
Unravelled from the tangle
Of disentangled orders, of the
Tide of the centre evil, i, e, a.
Second part: Unravel the tangle
Unravel the disentangled order
Unravel the sacredness
Unravel and disentangle it,
Ancient of the sky
The sacredness is caught e, a.
Third part: The night descends
The night descends, e, hi, a
The night descends
The night descends, e, hi, a
The night descends
Let some light be above.
Let some light be below
Night of the jarring
Crash of the strange god
The world falls
Night of ancient times
Make some world
Strange ………. god make some light i, a.
The world falls i, a.
The world falls
The world falls e a
Fourth part: Then shine, so flees the sacredness
The breath flees
As days like garments
Are land on the Whaka-roa (delay)page (46)
Gravel of what stars laid near,
So shines the light now gone
Shining forth, shines the woods
So shine the light, on sacred place
Ascend above, and gravel them
And go round and round, and dispute
So shine the woods, and ………. my sacredness
And then not sacred is, then coming
From above, and comes from below
Then plant it above, and let it be
The vibrating thunder, and feed the
Stars and the moon, and let
The sacredness be on open space.
Fifth part: The sacredness of Ngai nui
O Ngai-roa, Ngai-tuturi
Ngai-pepeke, Toi, Rauru and Taha-titi
And Rua tapu, and Tama-ki-te-ra-kai-ora
Plant stem, is planting done?, plant and depart,
Plant the woods, plant the medium gods.

At the time the Priest chants the words of the "Fourth part" that is these words "Then shine" he stands stiffly erect with his chest bare, with a garment on the waist and all the way down to the feet, but from the waist up to the head there is not any garment, all that part is bare; the Priest looks up to Heaven, extending his arms upward with the palms of his hands held upwards.

When he has repeated to the words of the fifth part, the garment is allowed to drop from his waist of the high Priest, who stands quite nude when he repeats these words "The planting of Great-ngai". He still stands stiffly and looks upward, when he opens and closes his hands each to the other, when he repeats the names of the gods, and then he nips his hands close page (47)together, but at the naming of each god, he opens his hands again, but in the instance of his repeating the name of a god he clasps his hands tightly one on the other. While the Priest is chanting the incantation all the people stand erect in a stiff position who are resolved from the effect of being sacred (tapu) who all look towards the Priest, but when the Priest gets to the words of the incantation at which he holds his arms out at right angles to his body and he looks upward to the sky, all the people who are being resolved from the effect of sacredness do the same, that is they repeat his gestures, and when the Priest……… his hands together, they also do the same, in fact they repeat all his gestures in every particular, as also they repeat the words of the incantation he chants.

To this Priest, the Priest who absolves the people from the power of sacredness, is given handsome presents by the people such as garments, green stone, sharks teeth and all the Maori look on as valuable.