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[Read before the Auckland Institute, 6th December, 1905.]
“Even as the moon dies, and then, having bathed in the waters of life, returns to this world once more young and beautiful, so let man die and revive.” Such were the words of Tane, offspring of Rangi, the Sky Father, and Papa, the Earth Mother, to Hine-nui-te-Po, Goddess of Death and Hades. But Hine of the Dark World said, “Not so. Rather let man die and return to Mother Earth, even that he may be mourned and wept for.” Hence we see mourning parties of the Maori people wailing for the dead. For what said the men of old?— “By tears and lamentation alone may [a natural] death be avenged.”
Having collected some few notes anent Maori eschatology from members of the Tuhoe or Urewera Tribe, it behoves me to put such together in the form of an article, for the purpose of
![Thumbnail: [Volume 38, 1905 page 149]](/journals/rsnz/images/rsnz_38/thumbnails/rsnz_38_00_0172_0149_ac_02.gif)
preservation, so as to place on record any hitherto unpublished matter which they may contain, inasmuch as the “weeds of Tura” have already come to me, and no man may know when he may drink of the waters of Tane-pi and lift the trail of Maui of old for the realm of Miru and of Hine.
Although my notes on some items are sufficiently numerous to give a fairly good idea of Native customs in past times, yet those pertaining to the ritual of burial and exhumation are decidedly meagre. Of the many incantations used on such occasions in the days of yore I have collected but few. This does not, however, affect the general reader, for such matter interests the specialist alone—he who seeks to understand the archaic expressions contained in such cryptic effusions of the ancient Maori.
These notes have been collected from the descendants of the original people of that part of the Bay of Plenty district lying between Whakatane on the coast and Ruatahuna in the interior. My reason for using the past tense in this paper is because many of the customs herein described have fallen into disuse, while others again have been modified since the introduction of Christianity.
A considerable amount of interesting information anent these matters may be found in the writings of the late Mr. John Whit, Taylor's “Te Ika a Maui,” and other works.
The matter contained in this paper is given as collected from the old men of the Tuhoe Tribe of Maoris, and is not made to support any pet theory of my own; for I hold that we who dwell in the dark places of the earth should confine our attention to placing on record original matter only, and carefully suppress any desire to theorise or generalise.