Tregear. — On Maori Spirals and Sun-worship. 291 



good a Maori scholar as those who came after, had the advan- 

 tage of seeing the natives in a far more primitive state than 

 we can, and knew quite enough of the language to understand 

 whether the Maoris said that they were worshipping the sun 

 or not. It is probable that the practice lingered only among 

 certain tribes, thus the Eev. Mr. Taylor spoke of the worship 

 of the heavenly bodies as being practised at Whanganui,* 

 whilst Mr. John White's legendary account belongs to the 

 South Island. Mr. White, in his " Ancient History of the 

 Maori,"! writes, " Then they selected a hundred and seventy 

 men of their tribe and went to the home of Hapopo, and, 

 having found Niwa-reka there almost alone, one of the party 

 asked, while all the others were silent, ' Where are the 

 people ? ' She answered, ' They are yonder, out on the 

 plain.' He asked, 'What are they doing?' She answered, 

 ' They are chanting songs and offering sacrifice to Ra (the 

 sun).' He asked, 'For what purpose?' She answered, 'To 

 suppress the ill-feeling of the people, and to give quiet to the 

 land.' " 



The Sun Feast, or Te Hakari, was held annually, and there 

 Ts a number of perpendicular stones resembling Druidical 

 remains still known by this name (or as Waka-ra) between 

 Kerikeri and Kaitaia.]: Indeed, it would appear strange if 

 sun-worship, known to exist among other Polynesians, had been 

 unknown to the Maoris. The Easter-Islanders worshipped 

 the sun,§ and the Polynesian colony at Port Moresby, in New 

 Guinea, did so also.|l At Mangaia Island, near Earotonga, 

 they speak of Tevake, who "worshipped the red light in the 

 east,"1I and in Samoa they not only worshipped the sun, but 

 offered up a human sacrifice to that deity every day for eighty 

 days.** Therefore it is probable that if the Maoris used a sun- 

 symbol they did so with a full knowledge {i.e., ancestral know- 

 ledge) of its meaning. 



Note. — To my deep regret I have here to suppress a part of the paper 

 as read. It described the sun-lodge, &c., in New Zealand, and had a 

 most important bearing on the rest of the monograph. The Maori 

 scholar, however, to whose learning and zeal for investigation my know- 

 ledge on the subject was owing, considers that its premature publication 

 ■would be unfair, and that it would detract from the interest of a work by 

 himself in which he treats upon the subject. Therefore I withdraw this 

 portion of the paper, and can only look forward with other lovers of 

 native lore till Mr. C. Nelson gives us the advantage of his studies in his 

 forthcoming book. — B. T. 



* " Te Ika a Maui," p. 99. 



tVol. ii., p. 53. 



+ White, " Maori Superstitions," 108. 



§ "Journal Anthropological Society," ii., 190. 



II " Pioneering in New Guinea," Chalmers, p. 171. 



H W. Wyatt Gill, " Savage Life in Polynesia," p. 31. 



** Turner's " Samoa a Hundred Years Ago," p. 201.^ 



