NATURAL RELIGION OF THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

New Zealander, Volume 8, Issue 641, 5 June 1852, Page 4

NATURAL RELIGION OF THE NEW ZEALANDERS.

(Fiom Shoitldnd'b New Zealand.) The ancient religion of the New Zealander taught him that anything, if placed in contact witli a saci-ed object, acquired the sacved nature of that ohjecjt ; .and that it was his first duty to guard ■whatever had been thus rendered sacred by contact from being eaten, or used for the purposes of cooking or eating. The greatest injury one man could inflict on another being to eat him, it was a natural idea that to cat anything which had become sacred by contact would be offensive to the person whose sacredness it had acquired ; and — as every New Zealand gentleman, in former times, was more or less sacred, and his head and back-bone especially so — to carry a basket of food on his back would have been to render it unlawful for any one but himself to eat of it. So sensitive, indeed, were they on this point, j that the dish of food destined 'for a person of the sacred class was carried to a little distance from his house, and from the spot where he and his friends usually reclined, and there set on the ground in order that he might eat his meal by himself; and, as no one el be dared to eat of what he left, if any food remained it was preserved for liis future use in a small safe or roofed box, which formed a conspicious object stuck on top of a pole in a particular part of the court-yard surrounding the family dwellings. In conformity with their singular religious belief, although murder might, in many cases, be a meritorious act, it was a heinous crime fora sacred person to leave his comb or his blanket in a cooking house, or to suffer another person to use a drinking cup after it had been rendered sacicd by touching his lips. For this reason a chief— unless a Christian — never drinks from a cup, but holds up his two hands close to his lips, in order that water may be poured into them, and thence run into his mouth : and if he wants a light for his pipe, burning embers must be brought to him, for his pipe is sacred from having been so often in contact with his mouth, and transmits sacredness to the live coal, so that if a particle of sacred cinder were to be replaced on the common fire, it would render that fire sacred, and by consequence no longer serviceable for cooking food. For similar reasons, a slave or other person not sacred would not enter a " wain tapu" or sacred place, without having first stripped off his clothes for the clothes having become sacred the instant they entered the precincts of the " wahi tapu," would ever after be useless to him in the ordinary business of his life, .since they would be liable to be brought frequently into contact with food intended for the use of the family. In short, the most marked peculiarities in the social habits of this people can be traced to the influence of the same pervading principle, that* food which has once touched a sacred object becomes itself sacred, and therefore must 9Wt be eaten except by the sacred object. For this law was not a mere idle belief, but was enforced by dread of their " atua." The " atua" or spirits of their ancestors who had died — such being, indeed, the only sort of divinities supposed to take an interest in human affairs — were believed to he very jealous of any neglect of the duties enjoined by their religion, and seldom to fail to take speedy vengeance on a delinquent by sending some infant spirit, or a " kahukahu," to enter into his body, there to feed on a vital part till sufficient punishment or death had been inflicted. Infant spirits, as has been mentioned, were considered very deadly, because they had not had time to acquire any attachment to their living relatives : a " kahukahu," representing as it were the mere germ of a human being, was held in still greater awe, in proof of which the following stanza may be cited : " Ko te kahukahu piri-tara-whare. \Kei te -wakahehe au i aku toto, 'Wai luln-i'de mo nga totiunga. Nana ka ngau kino, kaniate raw a." It is the " kahukahu" sticking fast in the wall of the house. I am making my blood run down, Instead ot water to smear the brow of the Cl tohunga." Should he (the " kahukahu") gnaw spitefully, it will be certain death. It is somewhat strange that the " atua" was not supposed to seek redress directly from the person who ate the food to which sacredness had been imparted — and who, as one would imagine, should naturally have been looked on as the principal offender — but from his own living relative, whose duty it was to prevent the occurrence of such an indignity. Hence we cease to wonder that a chief should have been moved to anger even to kill a slave, who through carelessness caused him to offend the dreaded spirits, by such an act as that of leaving any article of his dress within the limits of the family cook-house ; although, while ignorant of the peculiarity of the New Zealander's superstitious belief, we must have regarded his doing so as wanton barbarity. From what has been said, it will readily be understood why carrying food on his back was a labour in which a New Zealand gentleman coiild take no part before he embraced Christianity. Then if, as was often the case, he had not thrown aside all dread of the " atua" of his tribe — for though a Christian he still believed in the reality of their existence — he had faith that they were but inferior spirits, who had no power to harm a believer in Christ. In relation to the subject under consideration, it may be here stated that the " atua" of one tribe are not believed to meddle with the members of another tribe ; and that, when a person was taken prisoner, his connexion with his own tribe was severed, and its " atua" ceased to care for him. Hence, as a captive had no dread of offending the " atua" of his own or of his adopted tribe by cooking or by carrying food on his back, every sort of work having to do with cooking was performed by this class of persons, aided by those females of the tribe, who were not supposed to be regarded with peculiar interest by the " atua" and were therefore unworthy to be ranked among the sacred. Slavery was, in New Zealand, a necessary consequence of the superstitious belief of its inhabitants. The captive was, however, in some respects more free than his master : he entered into conversation with him fearlessly, he fed well, was not expected to overwork himself, and seldom cared to return to his own tribe — which circumstance in itself is a satisfactory proof of his being generally well treated : and if eventually he obtained a wife from the females of his adopted tribe, his children inherited their mother's position, and became objects of care to the spirits of her ancestors. Any one, therefore, would be led into error, were he to form an idea of the condition of this class of persons from a knowledge of wh<at slavery has been generally, or is now, in other countries.