MAORI MYTHOLOGY

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 846, 18 June 1910, Page 3

MAORI MYTHOLOGY

A "STRIKINC THEORY" EXAMINED. ' SUPERFICIAL- RESEMBLANCES AND VITAL DIFFERENCES. ■ [By Critic] • PART I. Everyone interested in tho study of mythology and kindred. subjects owes a real debt of gratitude to Mr. Hare Hongi for tho largo- amount of curious information ho has gathered together and published in The Dominion in tho form of supposed "parallels" between the legend of Tawhaki and the Christian Gospel. The articles must havo proved most interesting even to those who are of opinion that the evidence put forward is quite insufficient to establish the theory which Mr. Hare Hongi set out to prove. Personally, I havo been interested and entertained, and occasionally amazed; but conviction is out of the question. In fact I cannot quite persuade myself that Mr. Hare Hongi really expects to bo taken quite soriously. The "parallels" betweea tho story of Tawhaki and that of the Founder of Christianity break down completely under critical examination; tho supposed likenesses aro very superficial, and most of .the passages relied upon obtain what plausibility they may at first sight have only by being isolated from their, context and given a forced and unnatural meaning. A short outline of the career of Tawhaki, .as stated in Maori mythology, will provide the material for comparison on broad and general grounds with the Gospel story. It will, as it were, place in our hands two pictures, and if a general likeness is clearly visible a detailed examination of the most striking individual points of similarity would be the next step. If, however, the general likeness is not present, it cannot bo supplied by the accumulation of a' number of little similarities here and there, while ignoring great fundamental differences. •■ The Legend of Tawhaki. The following sketch of- , Tawaki's career .is based upon the account given in Sir George Grey's "Polynesian Mythology":— Tawhaki was the son of Hema and Urutonga, and he had a- younger brother named. Karihi. Tawhaki married Hinepiri-ph'i. He had four brothers-in-law, and on one occasion two of thenii tried to murder him, and, thinking they had slain him, they buried him. However, his wife, suspecting foul play, found the spot where he had been interred, and carried him home. He recovered, and the duty of avenging his wrongs was laid upon his first-born son Wahieroa. He next built a fortified village on a mountain tqp, and called upon the gods for revenge. There was a great flood, and all that race 'perished.' However, the work of revenge and destruction was not yet over. Hβ now remembered that a racecalled tho Ponaturi had slain his fathor,'and.after some incantations and strategy on the part of Tawhaki the Ponaturi were also blotted out. Tawhaki's'fame now reached even to the skies, and . a young maiden • of tho heavenly race, i Tango-tango, lost her heart to him, and they were married \Yhat became of the faithful Hincpiripiri we are not told. Tawhaki seems to have had a slight difference of opinion with 'his new wife regarding, tho baptism of their girl baby, and the wifo decided to return to her mansion in the skies. .• Tawhaki ■ was—Very • upset; over the loss of his partner, and decided to. go and look for hex. After somo travelling he came to a spot whore certain tendrils which hung from heaven reached the earth. Hero he restored sight to the eyes of a blind woman, whii gavo him somei good . advice. Ho then climbed up .the tendril to heaven, and on arrival he disguised himself from his brothers-in-law as ah ugly old man. Ho acted for a time as their slave (which appears to have been a , great joke from a Maori point of view), and showed his cloyerness as a ; boat-builder. His relatives eventually inspected his identity, and when his wife Tango-tango, asked him: "Tell,me, are you .Tawhaki?" he murmured "Humph," ' in assent. Then , he became quite resplendent, picked up his "little daughter, repeated tho prescribed prayers over her, and'the lightnings flashed from his armpits. Allegorical Interpretation. • Such briefly is the story of Tawhaki. Lot any man take the legend as given in Sir George Grey's book and place it beside tho Gospel of. St. Luke, for'ex--ample, and ho will see that the two aro so absolutely dissimilar that comparison is simply impossible.. There may bo an occasional superficial resemblance in a word, a sentence, or an incident, but in reality there is nothing in common between the two. If, therefore, Mr. Hare Hongi relies upon the legend as a whole to provide' a parallel to the Gospel his case hopelessly fails; but if, on the other hand, ho builds up his likeness upon allegcrical interpretations of the story, his list of similarities in words, and phrases, and incidents is so much wasted labour, as. the , likeness would not consist in these things themselves, but in some mystical meaning an interpreter may givo them. Anyone who knows anything about tho history of allegorical interpretation will understand what this' 'means. A man too often brings out. of these stories just what he puts in; he finds exactly what he looks for. -— - ■ - Some of these ancient mythologies, merely consist of. fables about the divine ancestors of the race or tribe without any esoteric meaning; in other cases tjiero is no doubt 'an underlying meaning, but it is entirely lost or' exceedingly doubtful; while in others, again, generally nature myths, tho interpretation is so plain that ho who runs may read. .Now , , there are, I think, distinct traces of sun-worship in Maori mythology,' and there, are, no doubt, somo noble idoas underlying tiio fawhaki myth, such as the association of greatness and humility, death and resurrection,' and his ascent into the skies in pursuit of the heavenly vision. But thosei foregleams of tho Gospel are not peculiar, to Maori theology. Similar ideas occur in other primitive mythologies, and they have found their fulfilment iu Christianity iii a higher and nobler form. A distinguished writer has pointed out that it would have been a grievous deficiency if Christianity had •stood in 2io relation to the: aobjesi, thoughts, feelings, hopes and aspirations of the pagan world. Still, it seems that the presence of certain coincidences between the Clirist of the Gospels and the gods or heroes of other religions'have led some people to place tho One on tho same .plane with tho rest; but if there arorcse.ml'lances there aro also profound and vital differences, as is pointed out by Mr. Nolloth in lu's recent book on "The Person of Our Lord and Recent Thought." The solidarity of the race makes these resemblances in elemental religious ideas antecedently probable. Christianity (lid not como as a bolt from a clear sky without any relations with the best thought of the ancient world, ami in the light of the wider outlook we see that God has nevor left Himself without witness to those facts and truths which find their fullest and truest expression in tho religion, of Clirist. Measurement by Generations. Let us now examine in more detail the arguments submitted by Mr. Hare Hongi in support of hie theory. It i s

hardly necessary to give much consideration to the calculation by means of which ho endeavours to make the. origin of the Xawhaki legend coincide with tho beginning of the Christian era. Measurement by generations is in itself a very doubtful process, and tho uncertainty is enormously increased when the margin of error' extends over twenty generations, ,the minimum being 52, and tho maximum 73. ■ Either extreme may be true, or neither; but the whole thing is reduced to an. absurdity when Mr. Hare- Hongi endeavours to solvo tho problem on the split-the-diffcrenco principle. Historical difficulties cannot be settled in this rough and ready way. v ln any case, this method does not give tho desired result, so ho chops off the , end of his generation-measuring rod and takes the maximum number of generations, tries another multiplication sum, and the thing is done. The ' IWhaki period is fixed at A.D. 4. If,; howover, lie had applied the shortened', measuring rod to the minimum number lof generations, this would have fixed" I the.date at A.D. 539. Thus, by three ; different processes—all equally reasonablo or unreasonable —wo get at three different dates, namely, A.D. -4, A.D. 115, and A.D. 539. "By applying tho shorter rod to. the middle number of! generations another result would havo! been forthcoming,' and by splitting the j difference between the shorter andJ longer rods and multiplying by the' minimum, middle, and maximum "number of generations respectively, three more dates might have been arrived 1 , at. Supposing that" not a line of Eng-i----lish history.had ever been written,, but; tnat,a vague tradition existed that in. the .dim and distant "once-upon-a-timo" . a.great stranger named Julius Caesar landed with an- army and conquered tho,. land. How near would we got to 55 B.C. in our attempts to fix the date of that event? This is a rough illustration of the position as regards the date , ' of tho origin of the Tawhaki legend. In my next and concluding article I' will examino in detail Mr. Hare.' Hongi's list of "parallels" between the legend of Tawhaki and the Gospelstory, and will consider his conclusion; that Clirist and Tawhaki. are one and the same, or that their stories have a, common origin. ... ,