Chapter 92
[96] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 40.
[97] J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la recherche de la Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833), iii. 685; W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 86; E.
Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 104 _sq._; Servant, "Notice sur la Nouvelle-Zelande," _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xv. (1843) p. 23; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 166 _sq._; _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 104 _sqq._ The taboo could be got rid of more simply by the tabooed man touching his child or grandchild and taking food or drink from the child's hands. But when that was done, the taboo was transferred to the child, who retained it for the rest of the day. See E. Dieffenbach, _op. cit._ ii. 105.
[98] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 85; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 165 _sq._; _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 103 _sq._
[99] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 85.
[100] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 96, 114 _sq._
[101] E. Shortland, _The Southern Districts of New Zealand_, pp.
68 _sq._
[102] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 114 _sq._
But in contrast to the temporary taboos which affected common folk and debarred them for a time from familiar intercourse with their fellows, a perpetual and very stringent taboo was laid on the persons and property of chiefs, especially of those high hereditary chiefs who bore the t.i.tle of _Ariki_ and were thought to be able at any time to hold visible converse with their dead ancestors.[103] Strictly speaking, "the _ariki_ of a Maori tribe is the senior male descendant of the elder branch of the tribe, that is, he is a descendant of the elder son of the elder son of each generation from the time of the original ancestor down to the present day. As such, he was of old regarded almost as a G.o.d, inasmuch as he represented all that there was of _m[)a]na_ and sacredness of his tribe. That he should have been regarded in this light is not astonis.h.i.+ng, for the Maoris believed he was something more than human, in that he was the shrine of an hereditary _Atua_, the guardian spirit of the tribe, and could therefore at any time communicate with the tribal G.o.ds.... Such a man was not only _tapu_ in person but he made everything he touched so dangerously sacred as to be a source of terror to the tribe. To smoke his pipe, or drink from any vessel he had touched, was death speedy and certain at the hands of the G.o.ds, who avenge breaches of the _tapu_."[104] "The G.o.ds being no more than deceased chiefs, the _arikis_ were regarded as living ones, and thus were not to be killed by inferior men, but only by those who had more powerful _atuas_ in them; the victorious chief who had slain numbers, swallowed their eyes, and drunk their blood, was supposed to have added the spirits of his victims to his own, and thus increased his _mana_ or power; to keep up this idea, and hinder the lower orders from trying whether it were possible to kill such corporeal and living G.o.ds, was the grand work of the _tapu_."[105] The G.o.dhead of a chief was thought to reside in his eyes, especially in his left eye; that was why by swallowing the eye or eyes of a slain chief a living chief was believed to absorb the divine spirit of the dead man and thereby to strengthen his own divinity; the more eyes he swallowed, the greater G.o.d he became.[106]
[103] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 40, 112 _sq._, 356; E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superst.i.tions of the New Zealanders_, p. 104; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 149, 164, 212 _sq._; E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, pp. 23 _sq._, _s.v._ "Ariki." The word _ariki_ signifies properly the first-born or heir, whether male or female, of a family.
[104] Lieut.-Col. W. E. Gudgeon, "Maori Religion," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol. xiv. no. 3 (September 1905), p.
130. Compare _id._, "The Tipua-Kura and other Manifestations of the Spirit World," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol. xv.
no. 57 (March 1906), p. 38.
[105] R. Taylor, _Te Ika a Maui_, p. 173. _Mana_ means authority, especially divine authority or supernatural power.
See E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, p.
203, _s.v._ "Mana"; and for a full discussion of the conception see Lieut.-Col. W. E. Gudgeon, "Mana Tangata," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol. xiv. no. 2 (June 1905), pp. 49-66.
"_Mana_ plays a leading part in the ability of a leader, or successes in war of celebrated warriors. When a man frequently undertakes daring deeds, which ought under ordinary circ.u.mstances to fail, but none the less prove successful, he is said to possess _mana_, and thereafter is regarded as one peculiarly favoured by the G.o.ds, and in such cases it is held that he can only be overcome by some act or default; such as a disregard or neglect of some religious or warlike observance, which has been shown by experience to be essential to success in war, but which our warrior, spoiled by a long career of good fortune, had come to regard as necessary to ordinary mortals only and of but little consequence to men of _mana_" (W. E.
Gudgeon, _op. cit._ p. 62). "There were cases in which the _mana_ of a man depended upon the facility with which he could communicate with the spirits of departed ancestors, that is, upon his capacity to enforce the aid and attendance of these minor deities. To this end every man with any pretension to _mana_ had a knowledge of certain forms of invocation by which he could summon the spirits of long departed heroes and ancestors, but it must not be supposed that these invocations would necessarily have power in the mouths of all men, for such was not the case. The efficacy of a _karakia_ or invocation depended in part on its method of delivery, and in part on the _mana_ of the man who used it" (W. E. Gudgeon, _op. cit._ p.
50). Compare R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 172, 173; _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 100.
[106] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 147, 352. The soul was thought to reside especially in the left eye; accordingly it was the left eye of an enemy which was most commonly swallowed by a victorious chief who desired to increase his spiritual power.
See J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la recherche de la Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 527; E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 118, 128 _sq._
Every such divine chief was under a permanent taboo; he was as it were surrounded by an atmosphere of sanct.i.ty which attached to his person and never left him; it was his birthright, a part of himself of which he could not be divested, and it was well understood and recognised by everybody at all times. And the sanct.i.ty was not confined to his person, it was an infection which extended or was communicated to all his movable property, especially to his clothes, weapons, ornaments, and tools, indeed to everything which he touched. Even the petty chiefs and fighting men, everybody indeed who could claim the t.i.tle of _rangatira_ or gentleman, possessed in some degree this mysterious quality.[107]
However, in young people of rank the sanct.i.ty which appertained to them by virtue of their birth was supposed to be only latent; it did not develop or burst into full bloom till they had reached mature age and set up house on their own account. Hence n.o.ble boys and lads were under none of the irksome restrictions to which in their adult years they were afterwards bound to submit; they mixed freely with the profane vulgar and did not even disdain to carry fuel or provisions on their backs, a thing which no man of any standing could possibly do; at all events, if he did so demean himself, the food was thereby rendered taboo and could accordingly be used by n.o.body but himself. "If he went into the shed used as a kitchen (a thing, however, he would never think of doing except on some great emergency), all the pots, ovens, food, etc., would be at once rendered useless--none of the cooks or inferior people could make use of them, or partake of anything which had been cooked in them.
He might certainly light a little fire in his own house, not for cooking, as that never by any chance could be done in his house, but for warmth; but that, or any other fire, if he should have blown upon it with his breath in lighting it, became at once _tapu_, and could be used for no common or culinary purpose. Even to light a pipe at it would subject any inferior person, or in many instances an equal, to a terrible attack of the _tapu morbus_, besides being a slight or affront to the dignity of the person himself. I have seen two or three young men fairly wearing themselves out on a wet day and with bad apparatus trying to make fire to cook with, by rubbing two sticks together, when on a journey, and at the same time there was a roaring fire close at hand at which several _rangatira_ and myself were warming ourselves, but it was _tapu_, or sacred fire--one of the _rangatira_ had made it from his own
[107] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 94.
[108] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 98.
The head of a chief was always and at all times deemed most sacred, and in consequence he might not even touch it with his own hand; if he chanced to commit the sacrilege, he was obliged at once to apply his fingers to his sacred nose and to snuff up the odour of sanct.i.ty which they had abstracted, thus restoring the holy effluvium to the place from which it had been taken.[109] For the same reason the cutting of a chief's hair was a most difficult and delicate operation. While it lasted neither the great man himself nor the barber who operated on him was allowed to do anything or partake of any food except under the restrictions imposed on all sacred or tabooed persons; to use the scissors or the sh.e.l.l, with which the operation was performed, for any other purpose or any other person would have been a terrible profanation of sacred things, and would have rendered the rash sacrilegious wretch, who had dared so to appropriate it, liable to the severest punishment.
The severed hair was collected and buried or hung up on a tree,[110]
probably to put it out of the way of common folk, who might have been struck dead by contact with the holy locks. But apparently the dangers incident to hair-cutting were by no means confined to chiefs, but extended to any one who was bold enough to submit his head to the barber's shears; for one of the early writers on the Maoris tells us that "he who has had his hair cut is in the immediate charge of the _Atua_; he is removed from the contact and society of his family and his tribe; he dare not touch his food himself; it is put into his mouth by another person; nor can he for some days resume his accustomed occupations, or a.s.sociate with his fellow-men."[111] The hair of the first-born of a family in particular, on account of his extreme sanct.i.ty, might be cut by n.o.body but a priest; and for many days after the operation had been performed the priestly barber was in a state of strict taboo. He could do nothing for himself, and might not go near anybody. He might not touch food with his hands, and no less than three persons were required to feed him. One of them prepared the food at a safe distance, took it to a certain place, and retired; a second came forward, picked up the victuals, carried them to another spot and left them; finally, a third, venturing into the danger zone, actually brought the food to the priest and put it into his mouth.[112]
[109] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 87; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 165.
[110] W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, p. 87; E.
Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 104.
[111] Richard A. Cruise, _Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in New Zealand_ (London, 1823), pp. 283 _sq._ Compare J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la recherche de la Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 533.
[112] Elsdon Best, "Maori Religion," _Report of the Twelfth Meeting of the Australasian a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, held at Brisbane, 1909_, p. 463.
The atmosphere of taboo or sanct.i.ty which thus surrounded Maori chiefs and gentlemen not only imposed many troublesome and inconvenient restraints on the men themselves, it was also frequently a source of very real danger, loss, and annoyance to other people. For example, it was a rule that a chief should not blow on a fire with his mouth, because his breath being sacred would communicate its sanct.i.ty to the fire, and if a slave or a common man afterwards cooked food at the fire or merely took a brand from it, the chief's holiness would cause that man's death.[113] Again, if the blood of a high chief flowed on anything, though it were but a single drop, it rendered the thing sacred to him, so that it could be used by n.o.body else. Thus it once happened that a party of natives came in a fine new canoe to pay their respects to an eminent chief; the great man stepped into the canoe, and in doing so he chanced to strike a splinter into his foot, which bled. That sufficed to consecrate the canoe to him. The owner at once leaped out, drew the canoe ash.o.r.e opposite to the chief's house and left it there.[114] Again, a Maori gentleman, visiting a missionary, knocked his head against a beam in the house, and his sacred blood was spilt.
The natives present thereupon told the missionary that in former times his house would after such an accident have belonged to his n.o.ble visitor.[115] Even the cast garments of a chief had acquired, by contact with his holy body, so virulent a degree of sanct.i.ty that they would kill anybody else who might happen in ignorance to find and wear them.
On a journey, when a chief found his blanket too heavy to carry, he has been known to throw it very considerately down a precipice where n.o.body would be likely to light on it, lest some future traveller should be struck dead by appropriating the sacred garment. Once a chief's lost tinder-box actually caused the death of several persons; for having found it and used it to light their pipes, they literally died of fright on learning the sacrilege which they had committed.[116] Such fatal effects consequent on the discovery of a breach of taboo were not uncommon among the Maoris. For instance, a woman once ate some peaches which, though she did not know it, had been taken from a tabooed place.
As soon as she heard where the fruit had come from, the basket which she was carrying dropped from her hands, and she exclaimed in agony that the spirit (_atua_) of the chief whose sanctuary had thus been profaned would kill her. That happened in the afternoon, and next day by twelve o'clock she was dead.[117] Again, a slave, a strong man in the prime of life, once found the remains of a chief's dinner beside the road, and being hungry ate it up without asking any questions. No sooner, however, did he hear to whom the food had belonged than he was seized with the most extraordinary convulsions and cramps in the stomach, which never ceased till he died about sundown the same day. The English eyewitness who reports the case adds, that any European freethinker who should have denied that the man was killed by the chief's taboo would have been listened to by the Maoris with feelings of contempt for his ignorance and inability to understand plain and direct evidence.[118]
[113] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 165.
[114] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 101; R.
Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 164 _sq._
[115] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 165.
[116] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, pp. 164 _sq._
[117] W. Brown, _New Zealand and its Aborigines_ (London, 1845), p. 76.
[118] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, pp. 95-97.
In order that a thing should be consecrated or tabooed to the exclusive use and possession of a chief, it was not necessary that his sacred blood should flow on it, or that he should merely touch it; he had only to call it his head, or his back-bone, or any other part of his body, and at once the thing, by a legal fiction, became his and might be appropriated by n.o.body else under pain of violating the taboo which the chief had laid upon it. For example, when a chief desired to prevent a piece of ground from being cultivated by any one but himself, he often resorted to the expedient of calling it his back-bone; after that if any man dared to set foot on the land so consecrated, the transgression was equivalent to a declaration of war. In this simple and easy fas.h.i.+on a chief might acquire anything that took his fancy from an axe or a canoe to a landed estate, and the rightful owner of the property dared not complain nor dispute the claim of his superior.[119]
[119] E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superst.i.tions of the New Zealanders_, p. 111; _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, pp.
137 _sqq._; R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 168.
Nevertheless in daily life even ordinary people used the taboo to secure their property or to acquire for themselves what had hitherto been common to all. For example, if a man found a piece of drift timber, he could make it his own by tying something to it or giving it a chop with his axe; he thereby set his taboo on the log, and as a general rule the taboo would be respected. Again, with a simple piece of flax he might bar the door of his house or his store of food; the contents of the house or store were thus rendered inviolable, n.o.body would meddle with them.[120]
[120] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_, p. 171.
It is easy to see that this form of taboo must have greatly contributed to create and confirm respect for the rights of private property. The most valuable articles might, we are told, under ordinary circ.u.mstances be left to its protection in the absence of the owners for any length of time.[121] Indeed so obvious and so useful is this function of taboo that one well-informed writer supposes the original purpose of the inst.i.tution to have been no other than the preservation of private property;[122] and another observer, after eulogising its beneficent effects, declares that "it was undoubtedly the ordinance of a wise legislator."[123] But to say this is greatly to overrate the wisdom and foresight of primitive man in general and of the Polynesians in particular; it implies a fundamental misconception of the real nature and history of taboo. That curious inst.i.tution was not the creation of a prudent and sagacious legislator, who devised this system of checks and restrictions for the purpose of curbing the pa.s.sions of a savage race and inducing them to submit to the salutary restraints of law and morality. It was in its origin, I believe, simply a crude and barbarous form of superst.i.tion, which, like many other superst.i.tions, has accidentally led to good results that were never contemplated by its ignorant and foolish votaries. It is thus that in the long history of mankind things which to a contemporary spectator might seem to be almost unmitigated evils turn out in the end to be fraught with incalculable good to humanity. This experience, often repeated, enables students of the past to look forward, even in the darkest hours, with cheerful confidence to the future.
[121] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 97.
[122] _Old New Zealand_, by a Pakeha Maori, p. 94.
[123] E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 100, "Ridiculous as this custom of the _tapu_ has appeared to some, and as many of its applications really are, it was, notwithstanding, a wholesome restraint, and, in many cases, almost the only one that could have been imposed; the heavy penalties attached to the violation of its laws serving in one tribe, or in several not in actual hostility with each other, as moral and legal commandments. It was undoubtedly the ordinance of a wise legislator." Compare G. F. Angas, _Savage Life and Scenes in Australia and New Zealand_, i. 330, "Doubtless this law is the result of some wise regulation for the protection of property and individuals, and it has in many things a beneficial influence amongst a people who have no written or regularly established code of laws of their own." To the same effect another authority on the Maoris observes: "The most politic and useful of all the superst.i.tious inst.i.tutions of the Maori people is that which involves the rites of _tapu_. It has always seemed to me that this inst.i.tution, with its far-reaching ramifications, must have been the conception of a very gifted mind, for, as a governing factor, it is very superior to the Hindu inst.i.tution of caste. It must, moreover, have been initiated during a period of civilisation, to which the Polynesians have long been strangers, but with which at one period of their history they were sufficiently familiar." See Lieut.-Colonel Gudgeon, "The Tipua-Kura and other Manifestations of the Spirit World," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol.
xv. no. 57 (March 1906), p. 49.
The particular superst.i.tion which lies at the root of taboo and has incidentally exercised a beneficent influence by inspiring a respect for law and morality appears to be a belief in the existence of ghosts and their power to affect the fortunes of the living for good or evil. For the ultimate sanction of the taboo, in other words, that which engaged the people to observe its commandments, was a firm persuasion that any breach of these commandments would surely and speedily be punished by an _atua_ or ghost, who would afflict the sinner with a painful malady till he died. From youth upwards the Maori was bred in the faith that the souls of his dead ancestors, jealous of any infraction of the traditionary rites, would commission some spirit of their kin to enter into the transgressor's body and prey on a vital part. The visible signs of this hidden and mysterious process they fancied to be the various forms of disease. The mildest ailments were thought to be caused by the spirits of those who had known the sufferer on earth, and who accordingly were imagined to be more merciful and more reluctant to injure an old friend and relation. On the other hand the most malignant forms of disease were attributed to the spirits of dead infants, who having never learned to love their living friends, would rend and devour the bowels of their nearest kin without compunction. With these ideas as to the origin of disease the Maoris naturally did not attempt to heal the sick through the curative properties of herbs and other drugs; their remedies consisted not in medicine but in exorcism: instead of a physician they sent for a priest, who by his spells and incantations undertook to drive the dangerous sprite from the body of the patient and to appease the ancestral spirit, whose wrath was believed to be the cause of all the mischief. If the deity proved recalcitrant and obstinately declined to accept this notice to quit, they did not hesitate to resort to the most threatening and outrageous language, sometimes telling him that they would kill and eat him, and at others that they would burn him to a cinder if he did not take himself off at once and allow the patient to recover.[124] Curiously enough, the spirit which preyed on the vitals of a sick man was supposed to a.s.sume the form of a lizard; hence these animals, especially a beautiful green species which the Maoris called _kakariki_, were regarded with fear and horror by the natives.[125] Once when a Maori of Herculean thews and sinews was inadvertently shown some green lizards preserved in a bottle of spirits, his ma.s.sive frame shrank back as from a mortal wound, and his face betrayed signs of extreme horror. An aged chief in the room, on learning what was the matter, cried out, "I shall die! I shall die!" and crawled away on hands and knees; while the other man gallantly interposed himself as a bulwark between the fugitive and the green G.o.ds (_atuas_) in the bottle, s.h.i.+fting his position adroitly so as to screen the chief till he was out of range of the deities.[126] An old man once a.s.sured a missionary very seriously that in attending to a sick person he had seen the G.o.d come out of the sufferer's mouth in the form of a lizard, and that from the same moment the patient began to mend and was soon restored to perfect health.[127]
[124] E. Shortland, _The Southern Districts of New Zealand_, pp.
30 _sq._, 294 _sq._; _id._, _Traditions and Superst.i.tions of the New Zealanders_, pp. 114 _sqq._; _id._, _Maori Religion and Mythology_, 31 _sq._; W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, pp.
141 _sq._ Most malignant and dangerous of all appear to have been thought the spirits of abortions or still-born infants. See Elsdon Best, "The Lore of the _Whare-Kohanga_," _Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol. xv. no. 57 (March 1906), pp. 12-15; _Reise der Oesterreichischen Fregatte Novara um die Erde, Anthropologischer Theil, Dritte Abtheilung, Ethnographie_, bearbeitet von Dr. Fr. Muller (Vienna, 1868), pp. 59 _sq._ Even more dangerous than the spirits of dead infants were supposed to be the spirits of human germs, which the Maoris imagined to exist in the menstrual fluid. See E. Shortland, _Traditions and Superst.i.tions of the New Zealanders_, pp. 115, 292; _id._, _Maori Religion and Mythology_, pp. 107 _sq._ As to disease inflicted by ancestral spirits (_atuas_) for breaches of taboo, see further J. L. Nicholas, _Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand_ (London, 1817), i. 272 _sq._, ii. 176 _sq._; E.
Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 105, "The breaking of the _tapu_, if the crime does not become known, is, they believe, punished by the _Atua_, who inflicts disease upon the criminal; if discovered, it is punished by him whom it regards, and often becomes the cause of war."
[125] Richard A. Cruise, _Journal of a Ten Months' Residence in New Zealand_ (London, 1823), p. 320; J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage autour du Monde et a la recherche de la Perouse, Histoire du Voyage_ (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 517; W. Yate, _An Account of New Zealand_, pp. 141 _sq._; E. Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, ii. 117; Elsdon Best, "Maori Medical Lore,"
_Journal of the Polynesian Society_, vol. xiii. no. 4 (December 1904), p. 228. As to the superst.i.tious veneration of lizards among the peoples of the Malay-Polynesian stock, see G. A.