Soon, however, a new and quite unexpected difficulty presented itself. On the side of the rebel party were engaged, either openly or covertly, some of the oldest, least civilised, and most influential chiefs in the Islands. With them I had either personally or by written communications to discuss questions which involved peace or war, and on which the whole future of the Islands and of the native race depended; so that it was in the highest degree essential that I should fully and entirely comprehend their thoughts and intentions, and that they should not in any way misunderstand the nature of the engagements into which I entered with them.
To my surprise, however, I found that these chiefs, either in their speeches to me, or in their letters, frequently quoted, in explanation of their views and intentions, fragments of ancient poems or proverbs, or made allusions which rested on an ancient system of mythology; and although it was clear that the most important parts of their communications were embodied in these figurative forms, the interpreters were quite at fault, they could then rarely (if ever) translate the poems or explain the allusions, and there was no publication in existence which threw any light on the subjects, or which gave the meaning of the great mass of words which the natives upon such occasions made use of; so that I was compelled to content myself with a short general statement of what some other native believed that the writer of the letter intended to convey as his meaning by the fragment of the poem he had quoted, or by the allusions he had made. I should add, that even the great majority of the young Christian natives were quite as much at fault on these subjects as were the European interpreters.
Clearly, however, I could not, as Governor of the country, permit so close a veil to remain drawn between myself and the aged and influential chiefs, whom it was my duty to attach to British interests and to the British race, whose regard and confidence, as also that of their tribes, it was my desire to secure, and with whom it was necessary that I should hold the most unrestricted intercourse. Only one thing could, under such circumstances, be done, and that was to acquaint myself with the ancient language of the country, to collect its traditional poems and legends, to induce their priests to impart to me their mythology, and to study their proverbs. For more than eight years I devoted a great part of my available time to these pursuits. Indeed, I worked at this duty in my spare moments in every part of the country I traversed, and during my many voyages from portion to portion of the Islands. I was also always accompanied by natives, and still at every possible interval pursued my inquiries into these subjects. Once, when I had with great pains amassed a large mass of materials to aid me in my studies, the Government House was destroyed by fire, and with it were burnt the materials I had so collected, and thus I was left to commence again my difficult and wearying task.
The ultimate result, however, was, that I acquired a great amount of information on these subjects, and collected a large mass of materials, which was, however, from the manner in which they were acquired, in a very scattered state—for different portions of the same poem or legend were often collected from different natives, in very distant parts of the country; long intervals of time, also, frequently elapsed after I had obtained one part of a poem or legend, before I could find a native accurately acquainted with another portion of it; consequently the fragments thus obtained were scattered through different note-books, and, before they could be given to the public, required to be carefully arranged and re-written, and, what was still more difficult (whether viewed in reference to the real difficulty of fairly translating the ancient language in which they were composed, or my many public duties), it was necessary that they should be translated.
Having, however, with much toil acquired information which I found so useful to myself, I felt unwilling that the result of my labours should be lost to those whose duty it may be hereafter to deal with the natives of New Zealand; and I therefore undertook a new task, which I have often, very often, been sorely tempted to abandon; but the same sense of duty which made me originally enter upon the study of the native language has enabled me to persevere up to the present period, when I have already published one large volume in the native language, containing a very extensive collection of the ancient traditional poems, religious chants and songs of the Maori race, and I now present to the European reader a translation of the principal portions of their ancient mythology, and some of their most interesting legends.
Another reason that has made me anxious to impart to the public the most material portions of the information I have thus attained is, that probably to no other person but myself would many of their ancient rythmical prayers and traditions have been imparted by their priests; and it is less likely that any one could now acquire them, as I regret to say that most of their old chiefs, and even some of the middle-aged ones who aided me in my researches, have already passed to the tomb.
With regard to the style of the translation a few words are required: I fear in point of care and language it will not satisfy the critical reader; but I can truly say that I have had no leisure carefully to revise it. The translation is also faithful; and it is almost impossible closely and faithfully to translate a very difficult language without almost insensibly falling somewhat into the idiom and form of construction of that language, which, perhaps, from its unusualness, may prove unpleasant to the European ear and mind; and this must be essentially the case in a work like the present, no considerable continuous portion of the original whereof was derived from one person, but which is compiled from the written or orally delivered narratives of many, each differing from the others in style, and some even materially from the rest in dialect.
I have said that the translation is close and faithful; it is so to the full extent of my powers, and from the little time I have had at my disposal. I have done no more than add in some places such few explanatory words as were necessary to enable a person unacquainted with the productions, customs, or religion of the country, to understand what the narrator meant. For the first time, I believe, a European reader will find it in his power to place himself in the position of one who listens to a heathen and savage high-priest explaining to him, in his own words, and in his own energetic manner, the traditions in which he earnestly believes, and unfolding the religious opinions upon which the faith and hopes of his race rest.
That their traditions are puerile, is true; that the religious faith of the races who trust in them is absurd, is a melancholy fact; but all my experience leads me to believe that the Saxon, Celtic, and Scandinavian systems of mythology, could we have become intimately acquainted with them, would be found in no respects to surpass that one which the European reader may now thoroughly understand. I believe that the ignorance which has prevailed regarding the mythological systems of barbarous or semi-barbarous races has too generally led to their being considered far grander and more reasonable than they really were.
But the puerility of these traditions and barbarous mythological systems by no means diminishes their importance as regards their influence upon the human race. Those contained in the present volumes have, with slight modifications, prevailed perhaps considerably more than two thousand years throughout the great mass of the islands of the Pacific Ocean; and, indeed, the religious system of ancient Mexico was, probably, to some extent connected with them. They have been believed in and obeyed by many millions of the human race; and it is still more melancholy to reflect that they were based upon a system of human sacrifices to the gods; so that if we allow them to have existed for two thousand years, and that, in accordance with the rites which are based upon them, at least two thousand human victims were annually sacrificed throughout the whole extent of the numerous islands in which they prevailed (both of which suppositions are probably much within the truth), then at least four millions of human beings have been offered in sacrifice to false gods; and to this number we should have to add a frightful list of children murdered under the system of infanticide which the same traditions encouraged, as also a very large number of persons destroyed for h
aving been believed guilty of the crime of sorcery or witchcraft.
It must further be borne in mind, that the native races who believed in these traditions or superstitions are in no way deficient in intellect, and in no respect incapable of receiving the truths of Christianity; on the contrary, they readily embrace its doctrines and submit to its rules; in our schools they stand a fair comparison with Europeans, and, when instructed in Christian truths, blush at their own former ignorance and superstitions, and look back with shame and loathing upon their previous state of wickedness and credulity; and yet for a great part of their lives have they, and, for thousands of years before they were born, have their forefathers, implicitly submitted themselves to those very superstitions, and followed those cruel and barbarous rites.
(1855)
George Grey, ‘The Children of Heaven and Earth: Ko Nga Tama a Rangi—Tradition Relating to the Origin of the Human Race’, from Polynesian Mythology
Men had but one pair of primitive ancestors; they sprang from the vast heaven that exists above us, and from earth which lies beneath us. According to the traditions of our race, Rangi and Papa, or Heaven and Earth, were the source from which, in the beginning, all things originated. Darkness then rested upon the heaven and upon the earth, and they still both clave together, for they had not yet been rent apart; and the children they had begotten were ever thinking amongst themselves what might be the difference between darkness and light; they knew that beings had multiplied and increased, and yet light had never broken upon them, but it ever continued dark. Hence these sayings are found in our ancient religious services: ‘There was darkness from the first division of time, unto the tenth, to the hundredth, to the thousandth’, that is, for a vast space of time; and these divisions of times were considered as beings, and were each termed a Po; and on their account there was as yet no world with its bright light, but darkness only for the beings which existed.
At last the beings who had been begotten by Heaven and Earth, worn out by the continued darkness, consulted amongst themselves, saying, ‘Let us now determine what we should do with Rangi and Papa, whether it would be better to slay them or to rend them apart.’ Then spoke Tu-matauenga, the fiercest of the children of Heaven and Earth, ‘It is well, let us slay them.’
Then spake Tane-mahuta, the father of forests and of all things that inhabit them, or that are constructed from trees, ‘Nay, not so. It is better to rend them apart, and to let the heaven stand far above us, and the earth lie under our feet. Let the sky become as a stranger to us, but the earth remain close to us as our nursing mother.’
The brothers all consented to this proposal, with the exception of Tawhiri-matea, the father of winds and storms, and he, fearing that his kingdom was about to be overthrown, grieved greatly at the thought of his parents being torn apart. Five of the brothers willingly consented to the separation of their parents, but one of them would not agree to it.
Hence, also, these sayings of old are found in our prayers, ‘Darkness, darkness, light, light, the seeking, the searching, in chaos, in chaos’; these signified the way in which the offspring of heaven and earth sought for some mode of dealing with their parents, so that human beings might increase and live.
So, also, these sayings of old time, ‘The multitude, the length’, signified the multitude of the thoughts of the children of Heaven and Earth, and the length of time they considered whether they should slay their parents, that human beings might be called into existence; for it was in this manner that they talked and consulted amongst themselves.
But at length their plans having been agreed on, lo, Rongo-ma-tane, the god and father of the cultivated food of man, rises up, that he may rend apart the heavens and the earth; he struggles, but he rends them not apart. Lo, next, Tangaroa, the god and father of fish and reptiles, rises up, that he may rend apart the heavens and the earth; he also struggles, but he rends them not apart. Lo, next, Haumia-tikitiki, the god and father of the food of man which springs without cultivation, rises up and struggles, but ineffectually. Lo, then, Tu-matauenga, the god and father of fierce human beings, rises up and struggles, but he, too, fails in his efforts. Then, at last, slowly uprises Tane-mahuta, the god and father of forests, of birds, and of insects, and he struggles with his parents; in vain he strives to rend them apart with his hands and arms. Lo, he pauses; his head is now firmly planted on his mother the earth, his feet he raises up and rests against his father the skies, he strains his back and limbs with mighty effort. Now are rent apart Rangi and Papa, and with cries and groans of woe they shriek aloud, ‘Wherefore slay you thus your parents? Why commit you so dreadful a crime as to slay us, as to rend your parents apart?’ But Tane-mahuta pauses not, he regards not their shrieks and cries; far, far beneath him he presses down the earth; far, far above him he thrusts up the sky.
Hence these sayings of olden time, ‘It was the fierce thrusting of Tane which tore the heaven from the earth, so that they were rent apart, and darkness was made manifest, and so was the light.’
No sooner was heaven rent from earth than the multitude of human beings were discovered whom they had begotten, and who had hitherto lain concealed between the bodies of Rangi and Papa.
Then, also, there arose in the breast of Tawhiri-ma-tea, the god and father of winds and storms, a fierce desire to wage war with his brothers, because they had rent apart their common parents. He from the first had refused to consent to his mother being torn from her lord and children; it was his brothers alone that wished for this separation, and desired that Papa-tu-a-nuku, or the Earth alone, should be left as a parent for them.
The god of hurricanes and storms dreads also that the world should become too fair and beautiful, so he rises, follows his father to the realms above, and hurries to the sheltered hollows in the boundless skies; there he hides and clings, and nestling in this place of rest he consults long with his parent, and as the vast Heaven listens to the suggestions of Tawhiri-ma-tea, thoughts and plans are formed in his breast, and Tawhiri-ma-tea also understands what he should do. Then by himself and the vast Heaven were begotten his numerous brood, and they rapidly increased and grew. Tawhiri-ma-tea despatches one of them to the westward, and one to the southward, and one to the eastward, and one to the northward; and he gives corresponding names to himself and to his progeny the mighty winds.
He next sends forth fierce squalls, whirlwinds, dense clouds, massy clouds, dark clouds, gloomy thick clouds, fiery clouds, clouds which precede hurricanes, clouds of fiery black, clouds reflecting glowing red light, clouds wildly drifting from all quarters and wildly bursting, clouds of thunder storms, and clouds hurriedly flying. In the midst of these Tawhiri-ma-tea himself sweeps wildly on. Alas! alas! then rages the fierce hurricane; and whilst Tane-mahuta and his gigantic forests still stand, unconscious and unsuspecting, the blast of the breath of the mouth of Tawhiri-ma-tea smites them, the gigantic trees are snapt off right in the middle; alas! alas! they are rent to atoms, dashed to the earth, with boughs and branches torn and scattered, and lying on the earth, trees and branches all alike left for the insect, for the grub, and for loathsome rottenness.
From the forests and their inhabitants Tawhiri-ma-tea next swoops down upon the seas, and lashes in his wrath the ocean. Ah! ah! waves steep as cliffs arise, whose summits are so lofty that to look from them would make the beholder giddy; these soon eddy in whirlpools, and Tangaroa, the god of the ocean, and father of all that dwell therein, flies affrighted through his seas; but before he fled, his children consulted together how they might secure their safety, for Tangaroa had begotten Punga, and he had begotten two children, Ika-tere, the father of fish, and Tu-tewehiwehi, or Tu-te-wanawana, the father of reptiles.
When Tangaroa fled for safety to the ocean, then Tu-te-wehiwehi and Ika-tere, and their children, disputed together as to what they should do to escape from the storms, and Tu-te-wehi-wehi and his party cried aloud, ‘Let us fly inland’; but Ikatere and his party cried aloud, ‘Let us fly to the sea.’ Some would not obey
one order, some would not obey the other, and they escaped in two parties: the party of Tu-te-wehiwehi, or the reptiles, hid themselves ashore; the party of Punga rushed to the sea. This is what, in our ancient religious services, is called the separation of Ta-whiri-ma-tea.
Hence these traditions have been handed down:—‘Ika-tere, the father of things which inhabit the water, cried aloud to Tu-te-wehiwehi, “Ho, ho, let us all escape to the sea.”
‘But Tu-te-wehiwehi shouted in answer, “Nay, nay, let us rather fly inland.”
‘Then Ika-tere warned him, saying, “Fly inland, then; and the fate of you and your race will be, that when they catch you, before you are cooked, they will singe off your scales over a lighted wisp of dry fern.”
‘But Tu-te-wehiwehi answered him, saying, “Seek safety, then, in the sea; and the future fate of your race will be, that when they serve out little baskets of cooked vegetable food to each person, you will be laid upon the top of the food to give a relish to it.”
‘Then without delay these two races of beings separated. The fish fled in confusion to the sea, the reptiles sought safety in the forests and scrubs.’
The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Page 15