Smith. — On the Tohunga-Maori. 253 



Art. XXX. — The Tohunga-Maori : a Sketch. 



By S. Percy Smith. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 8th August, 1899.] 



We have all heard of the Maori tohunga, or priest, and many^ 

 no doubt, have formed some ideas of his functions. If we want 

 to know something more about him, however, there is no work 

 that I know of in which this information can be found. It is 

 true there are references to the subject scattered through many 

 works on New Zealand, but nowhere is anything like a com- 

 prehensive account to be found ; nor does this paper pretend 

 to be anything more than the briefest sketch. It may prove 

 of interest, however, if we bring into focus some brief notes 

 such as may be gleaned from a study of the people of whom 

 the priest was so important a unit. 



We shall never know a very great deal about the priest- 

 hood of the Maori race. From the very nature of the subject 

 there are, and always have been, great difficulties in penetrat- 

 ing the dense atmosphere of mystery that surrounds their 

 doings. The outward form of their observances has been seen 

 by many, but the inner meaning and origin of their ritual will 

 never be completely known to us. It must be remembered 

 that the priests were a sacred class, and that their knowledge 

 was guarded with extreme care, only to be taught to those 

 of their direct descendants who were worthy and might be 

 trusted. The extremely sacred character of all the ritual and 

 much of the learning handed down from generation to genera- 

 tion prevented its communication to our own race, because 

 white people, according to Maori belief, were not sacred — 

 that is, they had no system of tapu such as the Maori had, 

 nor did they hold things tajm to the Maori in any sort of awe 

 or respect. Hence it came to be considered that the gene- 

 rality of white people were not fit subjects to whom these, 

 sacred things might be imparted. 



It arises from this that those who had the opportunity 

 afforded by daily intercourse with the Maori race, in the days 

 when there still existed many of the tohuiigas of a high class, 

 were not trusted by them except in a very few instances. It 

 was, moreover, the business of the early educated white men 

 to counteract and destroy the influence of the priests as 

 inimicable to the tenets of the religion they themselves taught. 

 Under these circumstances, it is obvious that the Maori tohu- 

 nga would not be communicative. Moreover, in the days of 

 early contact between the Maoris and men of the white race 

 the knowledge we now possess, that other races — neither 



