A Chapter on Pai-Marire,

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 7, Issue 342, 18 January 1866, Page 1

A Chapter on Pai-Marire,

THE NEW RELIGION OP THE MAORIS. (From Fraser’s Magazine, for October.) When Christianity was introduced into New Zealand, about half a century ago, it had to encounter few of those obstacles which have impeded its progress in India and China. Brahminism and Buddhism are so incorporated with the whole social system of the Hindoos and Chinese as to render them almost impervious to the: teachings of the new faith; whereas in New Zealand there were many causes which predisposed the natives in its favor. They had many superstitious observances, but no fixed form of religion; they deified the, powers of nature, but they had no temples dedicated to their worship. Ingenious men have constructed for the Maoris a theology as subtle and refined as that of the Hegelian philosophy; they have planted them as a race of copper-coloured Platos, spending their lives in discussing foreknowledge, free will, and fate. No picture could be more ludicrously untrue or unlike the original. Such questions were far beyond the reach of the Maoris untutored mind: he was of the earth, earthy; if he had enough to eat and drink, and'an occasional fight as a safety-valve for his superfluous energies, he troubled himself very little about the rest. He had a great respect for his chief, who might crack his skull with his war-club if he displeased him, but he had no great dread of gods whom he had never seen, and who seemed to take little interest in him or his affairs. He was much of the same mind as the Aberdeenshire farmer, who, being hard pressed on the subject of religion, candidly avowed his secular tendency. Gin I stand weel wi’ the laird, I dinna trouble mysel’ muckle aboot the minister.”

Au interesting work might be written on the superstitions of the Maoris, but the tenets of their ancient faith may be stated iu a few words. They had no conception of a Supreme Being; their gods were creatures like themselves. In tiie being was nothing ; nothing begat something; something begat something more, till at length we have Rangi, the heavens and Papa, the earth. From the union of Rangi and Papa sprung six gods who preside over the elements of nature; these unnatural children conspired against their parents and tore them asunder. Rangi was pushed upward, and Papa downward; they look lovingly atone another, but they have never since embraced. Papa sends up his love to heaven in the mists which ascend from the mountains; Rangi expresses her grief at being separated, in the dew-drops as tears which trickle from her eyes on the bosom of her beloved Earth. The amiable sons of this unhappy couple became the gods of the New Zealanders. Their names are as barbarous as their dispositions, so we need not specify them : the worship paid to them bordered closely on indifference. No temples were erected in honor of them; no maps were carved to represent their outward form; no day or hour was set apart for their worship. The present race of men are decended from the God of War ; one of his sons, called Maui, is the father of the Maori race. Maui ■was a great fisherman; one of his exploits was to hook and draw up from the azure main the island which was ever afterwards known as Te Ika a Maui, the Fish of Maui, till it was occupied by the pakehas, who called it New Zealand. * It took three months to accomplish this great -work, ia which he was aided by a dove, which flew up to heaven with a line in its beak ; Maui was thus enabled to tie the earth to the sun with ropes, which are now known as the solar rays ; he also tied the sun to the moon, so that when the sun sets the moon rises, and vice versa. In this simple way the Maoris endeavored to explain the most striking phenomena of the universe. Like the Chinese, they cherished a profound respect for their ancestors, some of whom were elevated to the same level and endowed with the same attributes as the gods whom they worshipped. While they believed in a future state of existence, their ideas of reward and punishment were confined entirely to this world, and death was supposed to put a stop to all their sufferings. They were familiar with the doctrine of the transmigration of souls: the spirits of their ancestors had sometime* to

reside for a time in the bodies of lizards and the appearance of one of tjiese reptiles is enough to make the bravest warrior quail with terror. There was an established order of priesthood, whose special office was to propitiate the favor of the gods by prayer; but this was never done save in times of great emergency, such as a famine or war. Many of their superstitious rites may perhaps he of Jewish or Hindoo origin; but there is no reason to believe that they have ever bad any intercourse with either of those races since their forefathers left the great continent of Asia.

Hongi, tbe Napoleon of New Zealand, was the first chief who favored the introduction of Christianity. When he visited England, he promised, at the request of George IY., to extend his protection to the missionaries, and he kept his word- He lived and died in the faith of his fathers, hut this enlightened heathen extended the most perfect toleration to all who chose to adopt the new religion. A few days before his death he assembled his tribe, and thus addressed them : “ Children and friends, pay attention to my last words. After lam gone be kind to the missionaries, be kind also to the other Europeans ; welcome them to the shore, trade with them, protect them, live with them as one people; but if ever there should land'on the shore a people who wear red garments, who do no work, who neither buy nor sell, and who always have arms in their hands, then be aware that these are a people called soldiers, a dangerous people, whose only occupation is war. When you see them, make war against them. Then, omy children, be brave! Then, 0 friends, be strong! Be brave that you may not be enslaved, and that your country may not become tbe possession of strangers.” The last words of Hongi were not without effect on his countrymen ; they did protect the missionaries, and they have not failed to fight the people who “ wear red garments” whenever they have had the chance. Every missionary was something of a trader as well as a teacher ; chiefs who cared nothing for the truths which they taught, were fully alive to the value of the articles in which they traded. The ebb and flow of fashion has its influence among the Maoris as well as among more civilized nations ; whatever may be the ruling passion of tbe moment they go in for it thoroughly. They have shown at different times a mania for ploughs, for threshing machines, for muskets, and for missionaries. When the mania passes away they cast their aside as a spoiled child would do its toy. The example of Hongi made the missionories a la mode, so that a tribe without a missionary was looked upon as slow and behind the age. The belief that worldly prosperity is a proof of Divine favor procured for the missionaries a more friendly reception: the natives on observing that the latter were wealthier than themselves, concluded that the God whom they worshipped must be more powerful than their gods. It is somewhat remarkable, also, that the heathen oracles when consulted unanimously pronounced Jesus Christ to be the true God. The tendency of polytheism is to make men tolerant; the worshipper of a score of gods can have no great devotion to any one cf them in particular: the chances are that all of them will be regarded with indifference. The Maoris were willing to admit the God of the Christians into their own Pantheon, and to assign to him the first place, but they were not prepared to give up their own gods. From the very nature of the case there could be no compromise, and for several years the missionaries labored in vain. The natives treated them with kindness ; rival tribes disputed the possession of them ; but they wore like men crying in the wilderness. The Bev. Henry Williams, an old sailor who had fought under Nelson at Copenhagen, declares, with professional frankness, that the natives were “as insensible to the necessity of redemption as brutes.” And the Home Societies thought of giving up the island in despair.

When the Maoris came to lenow that there was a chance of their losing the missionaries they roused themselves from their apathy, and went in for the new religion with as much thoroughness as they go in for everything else. It might almost be said, without ex* aggeratign, that the whole people went over

to Christianity en masse; more than twothirds were baptised, and those who abstained from this initiatory rite, in many cases, were favorable to the new religion. Polygamy was a barrier to some, as the missionaries were not prepared to view this institution in the same light as Dr. Goienso ; others were swayed by the conviction that the gods of their fathers might still retain some influence, and were thus debarred from breaking with them all at once. Heki, the northern chief who waged war with us in 1845, may be accepted as the representative of this class. He lived and died a heathen, but he showed by the address which he addressed to his followers on the eve of battle, through the medium of his Tohunga or priest that he had a sort of unenlightened faith in the new religion, “Be brave, and strong, and patient. Fear not the soldiers, they will nob be able to take this fort; neither be you afraid, of all those big guns you have heard so much of. I will turn aside the shot, and they will do you no harm; but this pa and its defenders must be made sacred (tapu). You must particularly observe all the sacred rites and customs of your ancestors; if you neglect this in the smallest particular, evil will befall you, and I also shall desert you. You who pray to the God of the missionaries continue to do so, and in your praying see you make no mistakes. Fight and pray. Touch not the spoils of the slain; abstain from human flesh lest the European God should be angry; and be careful not to offend the Maori gods. It is good to have more than one god to trust to. Be brave, be strong, be patient.” This singular address proves that the influence of Christianity was felt among those who adhered to heathenism; they were doubtless actuated by the same prudential motives as tne Yezzids, who worship simultaneously the principles of good and evil. Like the ancient pagans, when first admitted within the paie of the Christian Church the Maori converts retained much of their heathenism, but their is no reason to question their sincerity on that account. Wo believe that they were, on the whole, better Christians than the pakehas who settled among them; Christianity was to them a power, a new life. They gave into it with all the passionate devotion peculiar to halfcivilized races when under the influence of religious feeling ; their whole time was spent in singing psalmns adapted to heathen tunes in frequenting churches, in learning to read the Bible in their own tongue. The new religion spread into the remotest districts where the face of a white man had never been seen, and. the missionaries who had sown in tears began to reap in joy. The sublime morality of the New Testament was beyond their ken; but the history of the patriarchs brought under their notice a civilization analogus to their own, and was read with peculiar avidity. This predilection was increased by the teaching of the missionaries most of whom belonged to that school of theologians who see in every nail of the ark, in every thread of the tabernacle, the symbol of some Christian doctrine or duty. The result was such as might have been expected ; the Maori proselytes readily adopted the ideas of the Old Testament which were in keeping with their own, and made it the standard of authority in all questions connested with legislation or morals. Pakeha governors, in attempting to reason with them were sometimes confounded by biblical quotations, which they had probably never heard before, and were not at all prepared to answer.

The missionaries continued to dwell and labor among their devoted flocks till the present war broke out, when they were all compelled to leave. The hostile chiefs promised to do their utmost to defend them if they chose to remain, but warned them that they coaid not answer for their followers. They had broken with the Government; they had drawn the sword; they had staked their all on the contest, and were prepared to abide by the result; but they shrunk from the idea of shedding one drop of missionary blood. They might have their grievances against the missionaries, who, instead of protecting them, had too often aided in despoiling them of their lands: they might object to their presence from the suspicion that they were acting the part of spies to the Government;

bat they did not forget Low much they owed to them, and wished them to go in peace. After the war broke cut they opened their pas to those who were brave enough to visit them for the purpose of comforting the wounded and burying the slain. lu renouncing their allegiance to our authority, they remained faithful to the religion they had been taught; every Sunday the white flag was hoisted on their pas as the symbol of peace, and the sound of Christian hymns was wafted to the camp of the pakeiia ; the •dead were, no longer mutilated or devoured ; the wounded were treated with humanity. We are not theorizing or exaggerating ; we are speaking' from experience and personal observation; and when we consider that a quarter of a. century ago the Maoris were in the habit of devouring their enemies and cooking their beads, we cannot withhold our tribute of honest admiration from the men who have been instrumental in weaning them from their barbarous practices, and instilling into their minds the principles of humanity. Towards the. close of 1864 it began to be known that a new religion had sprung up among the natives at Taranaki. The decapitation and mutilation of the body of Captain Lloyd of the 57th Regiment, who fell in a skirmish with the enemy some months before, was believed to be an isolated act of barbarism, a mere passing outbreak of cannibalism ; subsequent events have proved that it was one*of the initiatory rites of the Pai Marire system, of the nature and origin of which we shall now proceed to give some details. The founder of the Pai Marire faith is Horopapera. Tuwhakararo, otherwise known as Te Ua, a native of Taranaki. He seems to have been affected with a species of insanity for some years; but what might have been deemed an affliction, proved a positive advantage when he assumed a prophetical character and laid claim to inspiration. The Maoris, like the Turks, regard insanity as', a proof of the presence of the spiritus inius, and attach the same weight to the incoherent ravings of a maniac as it they were oracular deliverances. He was first brought prominently into notice in 1862, ou the occasion of the wreck of the Lord Worsley, steamer, when the natives of Taranaki plundered the cargo and seized the crew and passengers. Te Ua, who, notwithsandiug his insanity, seems to have had a certain latent sense of Justice, tried to persuade his tribe to abstain from plundering the cargo, and to spud the passengers to Taranaki; cupidity proved stronger than superstition ; he failed to convince them, and this failure aggravated his disease, He now believed himself to be favored with personal interviews with the Angel Gabriel, who declared himself the special guardian of the Maori race. Christianity had done its work, and was now to be superseded by a new religion which was specially intended for the countrymen of Te Ua, who now stood in the same covenanted relation to God as the Israelites of old. Te Ua became the depositary of this new faith, and began to preach it to his countrymen, ■who were at this time engaged in war with the pakehas. The truths of religion do not gain a ready entrance into the minds of men engaged in actual warfare, and Te Ua preached peace, not because he preferred peace to war, but because it would afford him the opportunity of grounding his country meu in the tenets of the new faith. Every address he delivered began and ended with the oracular words pai marire, which embody the apostolic injunction—" Live peaceably,” an injunction which has never met with much favor in this country. So long as he preached the doctrine of peace, few cared to listen to him ; it was only when he proceeded to unfold the principles of the new revelation that be found a ready audience. The natives, already inflamed against the pakehas, and chafing beneath the restraints of the pakeha religion, were only too ready to obey Te Ua, when he announced that all Bibles and pray-er-books were to be destroyed; baptism, marriage, and the Christian Sabbath were to be set aside ; God had chosen the Maoris as his special people; no missionary, no stranger ■was to be allowed to dwell amongst them. Ad exception was made in favor of the Jews, who resemble them in having Shera as their common progenitor, and ia having been persecuted and oppressed bj the Gentiles or pakehas ; there time for favor is now come, and the two races are to dwell togetner as one people. In almost every country where the Jews have settled, they have been regarded with a certain feeling of distrust, if not of hatred; this feeling might easily be explained among nations professing Chritianity, bnt we have found it as rife among the Hindoos and Chinese, who know nothing of their past history, as among the Italians or Spaniards. The Maoris are the first people who . have cordially extended the band cf fellowship to \ be Jews, claimed them as their kindred after

the flesh, and welcomed them as their co-re-ligionists. The peculiar effect of missionary teaching are evident in this outburst of sympathy for the singular people whose history is recorded in the Old Testament. This sympathy is farther expressed in the word Tiu, or Jew, the professional name by which thejpriests of the new faith are designated. Te Ua, unlike Mohammed, laid claim to the power of working miracles, and the first manifestation of this supernatural power occurred under somewhat peculiar circumstances. Among the Maori warriors at Taranaki is one familiarly known as Te Meihu, or Big, Jack, whose name , has frequently turned up during the present struggle. While Jack was absent ia the field, his wife in some way incurred the displeasure of Te Ua, who, acting on the advice of the Angel Gabriel, bestowed upon here a severe beating. If the wife of Big Jack had been a Pai Marire convert, she would doubtless have felt grateful to the Angel Gabriel for the honor he had .done her, and kissed the rod with which she bad been flagellated ; but, being a woman of no faith, she regarded Te Ua as a dangerous lunatic who ought not to be left at large ; so, watching her opportunity, she overpowered the prophet, bound him with a strong rope, and acting merely on her own carnal impulses, beat him till she was tired. Te Ua was not left long in this woful plight; with a dexterity worthy of the Brothers Davenport, or, as he himself affirms, with the aid of the Angel Gabriel, he slipped the rope from his hands and restored himself to liberty. He was bound a second time with a chain which was padlocked ; he had only to stretch out his arms, when every link of the chain was broken. His next act was still more miraculous. One of his children had a twisted foot, which he tried to straighten by pulling it violently or by striking it with an axe; there was some diversity of opinion on this point, but the result was that he broke the bone, and the child died. His wife had hitherto believed in his supernatural powers, but on witnessing the death of her child she fled from him iu horror, and denounced him to the tribe as a murderer. A party was sent to apprehend him ; on reaching his hut they found the child was playing before the door ; the twist in its foot was gone, the bone was perfect, and there was no trace of any wound. The witnesses of this miracle reported it to their tribe, and the most sceptical were convinced that Te Ua was not a dangerous madman, but a great prophet.

(To be continued.)