James Frazer - The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3)

The ancestral spirits who particularly watched over the fortunes of a tribe were the souls of its dead warriors and great men. In war these powerful, though invisible, beings were thought to attend the army and direct its movements on the march by communicating advice or warning through some one or other of their nearest living kinsmen. In battle they hovered over the combatants and inspired courage into the hearts of their own tribe. Hence when, on the eve of battle, any young man showed signs of the white feather, recourse was immediately had to the family priest, who repeated a charm, invoking the aid of his friendly spirit; for the sensation of fear was ascribed to the baneful influence of a hostile spirit. If the friendly spirit prevailed, and the craven spirit was expelled, the young man would rush into the thickest of the fight and prove himself the bravest of the brave. 81 81 E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders , pp. 81 sq.

The interest taken by the spirits of the dead in mundane affairs seldom extended beyond the limits of the tribe to which they belonged. Hence a captive in war, who was carried away and enslaved by another tribe, ceased from that moment to be under the protection and care of any ancestral spirit or god. For the ancestral spirits of his own tribe did not trouble themselves to follow him among a hostile tribe and hostile spirits, and the ancestral spirits of the tribe whom he served as a slave would not deign to give him a thought. Hence being forsaken of god and left to their own devices, slaves were relieved from many of the burdensome restrictions which the Maori gods laid upon their worshippers; they were therefore free to perform many menial offices, particularly in regard to carrying and cooking food, which no free Maori could discharge without sinning against the sacred law of taboo and incurring the wrath of the ancestral spirits, who for such a transgression might punish the sinner with sickness or death. 82 82 E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders , pp. 82 sq. ; id. , The Southern Districts of New Zealand , pp. 296 sq.

In addition to their deified ancestors, who had lived as men of flesh and blood on earth, the Maoris believed in certain great primaeval deities, who had existed before the human race came into being, and whose doings were the theme of many mythical stories. These mighty beings appear to have been personifications of the various forces or elements of nature, such as the sky and the earth. But though fancy wove round them a glistering web of myth and fable, they were apparently believed to stand aloof in cold abstraction from human affairs and to take no interest in the present race of men. The practical religion of the Maori was concentrated on the souls of his deceased kinsfolk and forefathers: "neither in any existing superstition nor tradition, purely such, is there to be found internal evidence that an idea of God existed more exalted than that of the spirit of a dead ancestor." 83 83 E. Shortland, Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders , p. 80. Compare id. , Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders , p. 81; id. , The Southern Districts of New Zealand , p. 294; id. , Maori Religion and Mythology , pp. 10 sq. In Maori mythology Rangi is the personification of the sky, and Papa of earth. They were the primal parents, and the other great gods were their offspring. See Elsdon Best, "The Maori Genius for Personification," Transactions of the New Zealand Institute , liii. (1921) p. 2. Among the great primordial deities who were worshipped by all tribes of New Zealand may be mentioned Tane, Tu, Tangaroa, and Rongo. Of the four, Tane was the origin and tutelary deity of forests and birds: no tree might be felled and no bird caught till certain rites had been performed to placate him. Tu was the god of war. Tangaroa was the god of the ocean, the origin and tutelary deity of fish. Rongo was the god of peace, and presided over agriculture. See Elsdon Best, "Maori Religion," Report of the Twelfth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, held at Brisbane, 1909 , p. 458. The same four gods, with names only dialectically different, were, as we shall see later on, the principal deities of the Sandwich Islanders, the most distant geographically from the Maoris of all the Polynesians. The coincidence furnishes an example of the homogeneity of religion which prevailed among the various branches of the Polynesian race.

The word which the Maoris applied to a god, whether a personification of nature or the spirit of a dead ancestor, was atua . The name is not confined to the Maori language, but is the common word for god throughout Polynesia. 84 84 E. Tregear, Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary , pp. 30 sq. , s. v. "Atua." When the Maoris attempt to define the nature of an atua , they have recourse to the same comparisons with a shadow and with breath which appear to underlie their conception of the human soul. 85 85 J. Dumont d'Urville, Voyage autour du Monde et à la recherche de la Pérouse, Histoire du Voyage (Paris, 1832-1833), ii. 516 sq. But though "god" is the nearest English equivalent of the word atua , we must beware of assuming that the Maori idea of godhead coincided with ours. On this subject one of our best authorities tells us that the term "god" is really not applicable to the Atua Maori , the so-called gods of the Maoris. For these beings, he says, "were, with few exceptions, malignant demons, to be feared and placated or conciliated, but not worshipped. Their principal task seems to have been the inflicting upon mankind of diverse evils, pains, and penalties. Of the few good offices performed by them, the warning of the people in regard to coming troubles, seems to have been the most important. The vast majority of the so-called gods of the Maori were simply deified ancestors." 86 86 Elsdon Best, "Notes on the Art of War as conducted by the Maori of New Zealand," Journal of the Polynesian Society , vol. xi. no. 2 (June 1902). pp. 63 sq.

In order to illustrate the difference between the Maori conception of deity and our own, I will quote the words of another eminent authority on the native religion of the New Zealanders. He says, "Before the mythology of the Maori is further considered, it will be necessary briefly to state what were the ideas of God entertained by the natives. The word atua , or spirit, which is used for God, formerly had various significations; a plague or disease was also he atua , or God; a thief was an atua , thus also a thievish dog was he kuri atua , a god-like dog, so also he tangata atua ki te muru , a man equal to a god in stealing; a child who pilfered was he tamaiti atua , a divine child; there were great spirits and small ones, a man's spirit was an atua pore pore , a little spirit, but Maru Rongomai and other gods were Atua nui , great gods; there were atua ika , reptile or fish gods; a great chief was called He ika , a fish, sea monster, or reptile, and was regarded as a malignant god in life, and a still worse one after death; there were likewise Atua marau , as the toroa , albatross, the ruru , owl; and karu karu , the film which shades its eye from the light, was also an atua ; male and female spirits presided over dreams, and were regarded as atuas, Ko nga atua moe moea o te poko , the gods of dreams; Tunui a rangi , a male, Pare kewa , a female deity, both were prayed to as gods; the atua kore and atua kiko kiko were inferior gods. The Atua ngarara or reptile gods were very abundant, and were supposed to be the cause of all diseases and death, being always ready to avail themselves of every opportunity of crawling down the throat during sleep, and thus preying upon the lives of unfortunate creatures. Atuas or spirits of the deceased were thought to be able to revisit the earth and reveal to their friends the cause of their sickness. Everything that was evil or noxious was supposed especially to belong to the gods; thus a species of euphorbium, whose milk or juice is highly poisonous, is called wai u atua , the milk of the gods." 87 87 R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui , pp. 134 sq. "In fact, in the accounts which the natives give of their gods and their exploits, we have but a magnified history of their chiefs, their wars, murders, and lusts, with the addition of some supernatural powers; they were cannibals; influenced by like feelings and passions as men, and were uniformly bad; to them were ascribed all the evils incident to the human race; each disease was supposed to be occasioned by a different god, who resided in the part affected; thus, Tonga, the god who caused headache, took up his abode in the forehead; Moko Titi, a lizard god, was the source of all pains in the breast; Tu-tangata-kino was the god of the stomach; Titihai occasioned pains in the ankles and feet; Rongomai and Tuparitapua were the gods of consumption, and the wasting away of the legs and arms; Koro-kio-ewe presided over childbirth, and did his worst to unfortunate females in that state. In fact, the entire human body appears to have been shared out amongst those evil beings, who ruled over each part, to afflict and pain the poor creatures who worshipped them." 88 88 R. Taylor, Te Ika A Maui , p. 137.