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planation 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 upon these subjects, or which gave the meaning of the great mass of the 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 is lands. 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 portion of their ancient mythology, and of some of their most interesting legends."-Preface,pp.iii.-x,

The book thus laboriously compiled and translated, we have read with un. abated interest from beginning to end. It is true that, as Sir Geo. Grey himself remarks, the stories and traditions are often puerile and absurd, but not more puerile or more absurd than the stories and traditional mythology of our own ancestors, whether Celtic or Saxon, or than those handed down to us from the old Greeks and Romans. To the latter especially we have become reconciled from having had them taught us from our boyhood as carefully as if they had still been part of our faith, and from their being embalmed in all the graces of diction and elegance, beauty and grandeur of language by the most famous poets of the world. If, however, the mythological stories of Homer, and Hesiod, and Eschylus, or of Virgil and Ovid, were to be simply translated into ordinary prose even as they now stand, an educated man who had never heard of them before (supposing you could find such a person) would be moved to laughter by their silliness, instead of being awed by their sublimity or pleased by their beauty. Still more would this have been the case if we could have had the old original stories of the people, before they had passed through the alembic of the poet's brain. The dim old gods of Ethiopia and their rebel

lious progeny, who made their heaven on Olympus, are all mere overgrown children, kissing or scratching, loving or fighting, feasting or quarrelling, as the humour takes them. They are all human beings endowed with supernatural powers, which seem sometimes to fail them just when they are most wanted and most likely to be called into play. The whole heathen mythology is, in fact, a jumble of inconsistency and nonsense, with a mixture of something worse, to which really that of the Polynesian, as given us by Sir George Grey, seems quite respectable by contrast.

It is true that now and then we catch the traces of something more rational that would appear to be dimly symbolised, as in the story of Chronos (Saturn), or Time, eating his own children; but these instances are rare and obscure, and contain nothing very wonderful when their mystery is explained. Against the ordinary run of the heathen mythology, we would back the following one given us by Sir George Grey :

"Men had but one pair of primitive ancestors; they sprang from the vast heaven that exists above us, and from the 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 Tumatauenga, 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 wo 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 be 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 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 rotten

ness.

"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 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-te-wehiwehi, 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-wehiwehi 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-tewehiwehi, 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-whirima-tea.

"Hence these traditions have been handed down:-'Ika-tere, the father of things which inhabit 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 ligted wisp of dry fern.'

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"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.

"Tangaroa, enraged at some of his children deserting him, and, being sheltered by the god of the forests on dry land, has ever since waged war on his brother Tane, who, in return, has waged war against him."-pp. 8-15.

The sort of dim and misty sublimity with which this passage begins, and the sudden allusion to the every-day meals of the people, which seem to be the principal result of it, is very characteristic. Neither is there anything in Ovid more delicate in fancy than the closing paragraph of this chapter, a literal translation into our rough tongue of the mellifluous syllables of the vowel-sounding Polynesian :

"Up to this time the vast Heaven has still ever remained separated from his spouse, the Earth. Yet their mutual love still continues the soft warm sighs of her loving bosom still ever rise up to him, ascending

from the woody mountains and valleys, and men call these mists; and the vast Heaven, as he mourns through the long nights his separation from his beloved, drops frequent tears upon her bosom, and men seeing these, term them dew-drops.”—p. 6.

The legend of Maui, which follows this, is a very curious one, and seems to have concealed in it, in some places, some higher and better meaning than would be derived from the mere story. It begins quite according to our poetic rules, by bursting in medias res without any previous explanation or men. tion of who Maui was. One day Maui asked his brothers to tell him the place where their father and mother dwelt ? The brothers say that they do not know, and do not care, and advise him not to trouble himself. He, however, persists, for he had found something out after he was himself discovered by his relations. The tale then proceeds :

"They discovered him one night whilst they were all dancing in the great house of assembly. Whilst his relations were all dancing there, they then found out who he was in this manner. For little Maui, the infant, crept into the house, and went and sat behind one of his brothers, and hid himself, so when their mother counted her children that they might stand up ready for the dance, she said- One, that's Maui-taka; two, that's Maui-roto; three, that's Mauipae; four, that's Maui-waho;' and then she saw another, and cried out, 'Hollo, where did this fifth come from? Then little Maui, the infant, answered, Ah, I'm your child, too.' Then the old woman counted them all over again, and said, 'Oh, no, there ought to be only four of you; now for the first time I've seen you.' Then little Maui and his mother stood for a long time disputing about this in the very middle of the ranks of all the dancers.

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"At last she got angry, and cried out, 'Come, you be off now, out of the house at once; you are no child of mine, you belong to some one else. Then little Maui spoke out quite boldly, and said, Very well, I'd better be off, then, for I suppose, as you say it, I must be the child of some other person; but indeed I did think I was your child when I said so, because I knew I was born at the side of the sea, and was thrown by you into the foam of the surf, after you had wrapped me up in a tuft of your hair, which you cut off for the purpose; then the seaweed formed and fashioned me, as, caught in its long tangles, the ever-heaving surges of the sea rolled me, folded as I was in them, from side to side; at length the breezes and squalls which blew from the ocean drifted me on shore

again, and the soft jelly-fish of the long sandy beaches rolled themselves round me to protect me; then again myriads of flies alighted on me to buzz about me and lay their eggs, that maggots might eat me, and flocks of birds collected around me to peck me to pieces; but at that moment appeared there also my great ancestor, Tama-nui-kite-Rangi, and he saw the flies and the birds collected in clusters and flocks above the jelly-fish, and the old man ran, as fast as he could, and stripped off the encircling jellyfish, and behold within there lay a human being; then he caught me up and carried me to his house, and he hung me up in the roof that I might feel the warm smoke and the heat of the fire, so I was saved alive by the kindness of that old man. At last I grew, and then I heard of the fame of the dancing of this great House of Assembly. It was that which brought me here. But from the time I was in your womb, I have heard the names of these your first-born children, as you have been calling them over until this very night, when I again heard you repeating them. In proof of this I will now recite your names to you, my brothers. You are Maui-taha, and you are Maui-roto, and you are Maui-pae, and you are Mauiwaho, and as for me, I'm little Maui-thebaby, and here I am sitting before you.'

"When his mother, Taranga, heard all this, she cried out, You dear little child, you are, indeed, my last-born, the son of my old age, therefore I now tell you your name shall be Maui-tiki-tiki-a-Taranga, or Mauiformed-in-the-top-knot-of-Taranga,' and he was called by that name."-pp. 17-20.

His mother, Taranga, then takes him to sleep with her, and treats him with peculiar favour, which makes his brothers jealous, and they murmur among themselves, but the elder says—

"Let us take care that we are not like the children of Rangi-nui and of Papa-tu-anuku, who turned over in their minds thoughts for slaying their parents; four of them consented, but Tawhiri-ma-tea had little desire for this, for he loved his parents; but the rest of his brothers agreed to slay them; afterwards when Tawhiri saw that the husband was separated far from his wife, then he thought what it was his duty to do, and he fought against his brothers. Thence sprang the cause which led Tu-matauenga to wage war against his brethren and his parents, and now at last this contest is carried on even between his own kindred, so that man fights against man."-p. 21.

We are then told that Taranga, though always present at night with her children, was never to be found in the morning, or seen during the day, and that Maui is resolved to discover

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the meaning of this mystery. therefore one night, when she and all the rest are asleep, rises and hides her clothes, her apron and belt, and stops up the doors, and every chink of the house, so that it is kept dark, and his mother sleeps on till broad daylight. At last, jumping up, she discovers the trick, snatches up a fragment of an old cloak, and rushes away. Maui creeps after and watches her, and sees her lift up a bunch of rushes, and disappear beneath it, and on going to examine, discovers the mouth of "a beautiful open cave, running quite deep into the earth."

Maui, upon this, applies to his brother for information as to the place where their parents dwelt, but is met with

"What do we care about our father, or about our mother? Did she feed us with food till we grew up to be men? not a bit of it. Why, without doubt, Rangi, or the heaven, is our father, who kindly sent his offspring down to us; Hau-whenua, or gentle breezes, to cool the earth and young plants; and Hau-ma-ringiringi, or mists, to moisten them; and Hau-ma-roto-roto, or fine weather, to make them grow; and Touarangi, or rain, to water them; and Tomairangi, or dews, to nourish them: he gave these his offspring to cause our food to grow, and then Papa-tu-a-nuku, or the earth, made her seeds to spring, and grow forth, and provide sustenance for her children in this long-continuing world.

"Little Maui then answered, 'What you say is truly quite correct; but such thoughts and sayings would better become me than you, for in the foaming bubbles of the sea I was nursed and fed; it would please me better if you would think over and remember the time when you were nursed at your mother's breast; it could not have been until after you had ceased to be nourished by her milk that you could have eaten the kinds of food you have mentioned; as for me, oh! my brothers, I have never partaken either of her milk or of her food; yet I love her, for this single reason alone that I lay in her womb; and because I love her, I wish to know where is the place where she and my father dwell.'"

We are then told, incidentally, that on his first appearance, "he had finished his first labour," which was to transform himself into the likeness of all manner of birds, and that now he assumed the form of a most beautiful pigeon, "at which his brothers were quite delighted, and they had no power left to do anything but admire him.”

In this form he enters the cave, and flies along an immense way, till "at last he saw a party of people sitting under a grove of trees," and his mother lying by his father, and he perched in the trees right over them.

He then threw down berries upon them, and cooed among the boughs till the whole of the people, "chiefs and common people alike," began to pelt him with stones. He allows himself to be struck by a stone thrown by his father, and came fluttering down and struggling upon the ground, and "they all ran to catch him; but lo, the pigeon had turned into a man."

"Then all those who saw him were frightened at his fierce glaring eyes, which were red as if painted with red ochre, and they said, 'Oh, it is now no wonder that he so long sat still up in the tree; had he been a bird he would have flown off long before, but he is a man:' and some of them said, 'No, indeed, rather a god-just look at his form and appearance, the like has never been seen before, since Rangi and Papa-tu-a-nuku were torn apart.'"

We then learn that a considerable interval had elapsed since Maui had discovered the cave, and that his mother had never renewed her visits to her children, for she with difficulty recognises him, saying that "she used to see one like him when she went to visit her chidren," and recounts the history to the rest.

We have then the following curious passage, in which there are several very remarkable allusions to old customs and ceremonies of the Maoris:

"Then his mother asked Maui, who was sitting near her, 'Where do you come from? from the westward?' and he answered, 'No.' 'From the north-east, then?' 'No.' From the south-east, then?' 'No.' 'From the south, then?' 'No.' Was it the wind

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which blows upon me which brought you here to me, then?' when she asked this, he opened his mouth and answered, 'Yes.' And she cried out, Oh, this, then, is indeed my child;' and she said, 'Are you Maui-taha?' he answered, 'No.' Then said she, 'Are you Maui-tikitiki-o-Taranga?' and he answered, 'Yes.' And she cried aloud, This is, indeed, my child. By the winds and storms and wave-uplifting gales he was fashioned, and became a human being; welcome, oh, my child, welcome; by you shall hereafter be climbed the threshold of the house of your great ancestor Hine-nui-te-po, and death shall thenceforth have no power over man.' "Then the lad was taken by his father to

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