Teaches Art of Tattooing

Te Ao Hou, June 1965, Page 43

Teaches Art of Tattooing When he returns to this world, Mataora teaches people the art of tattooing. In the story of Pare and Hutu, Pare is a young woman (‘puhi’) of very high birth, who lives in a house full of the most beautiful cloaks. She falls in love with a nobleman named Hutu who visits her village and distinguishes himself in the games held by her people. When he rejects her, she hangs herself. With the aid of incantations, Hutu visits the underworld in search of her, and there he attracts her attention by making a new kind of swing (‘morere’). She sits on his shoulders, and by swinging up very high, they escape from the underworld. When they return to her home, Pare's spirit re-enters her body. Pare's people acclaim Hutu and say that it is his powerful incantations which have brought her back to life. Pare marries Hutu, and from this time onwards she is known as Pare-Hutu. These two stories, together with similar accounts, are re-told in Mr A. W. Reed's ‘Treasury of Maori Folklore’ (1963) pp. 96–115. They follow a pattern which is to be found in similar stories all over the world; two of the best known versions are those of Orpheus and Eurydice, and Demeter and her daughter Persephone. A great many of these stories have been closely examined by Sir James Frazer in his monumental work, ‘The Golden Bough’. In all of these myths the first of the two personages, having been offended in some way, goes down to the underworld. The second person, who is either a relative or a lover, follows the runaway down to the underworld and attempts to bring him or her back to life on earth.