Best. — Maori Marriage Ctcstoms. 17 



latter appear to have been more distinctly anthropomorphous ; 

 at least, they are credited with human passions, and are said 

 to have performed divers manual feats and tasks. 



The primal beings above mentioned would seem to have 

 been animistic conceptions, personifications of eras and aBons 

 of time. They represented chaos, they emerged from nothing- 

 ness, from the dark void, from the womb of time. They were 

 the origin of the Maori cosmos, and as time rolled on the 

 universe became more ordered, the elements came into being 

 through the same agency of sex, the heavenly bodies appeared 

 as offspring of sexed personifications, after which came the 

 heroes of Maori mythology, gods and demigods, and then man 

 appeared — that is to say, man as we know him, man of the 

 world of light, the world of life and being. Such is, in few 

 words, the spirit of the Maori cosmogony and anthropogeny, 

 as also the origin of sex. In fine, Maori myths and origins are 

 noted for the mytho-poetic ideas and animistic conceptions 

 which they contain and are based upon. 



When Eangi and Papa, the Sky Parent and the Earth 

 Mother, came into being they embraced each other as hus- 

 band and wife, and produced certain beings who were the 

 origin or personification of trees, birds, fish, winds, war, 

 peace, &c. ; and these children, objecting to the state of dark- 

 ness in which they lived, on account of the sky lying pressed 

 down upon the earth, cast about for a plan whereby they 

 might enjoy light and space. This ended in their forcing 

 their parents apart. Tane, tutelary deity of trees, forests, and 

 birds, thrust the sky upwards and propped it up with poles. 

 Observe here the origin of divorce, and the name thereof. 

 Toko (noun), a pole ; also, a ray of light. Toko (verb), to 

 propel with a pole. Now, the Maori term for divorce is toko, 

 and in the invocation repeated by the priest during the per- 

 formance of the divorce rite occur the words — 



Ka tokona atu nei korua 

 Tu ke Rangi, tau ke Papa — 

 (You two are forced apart as were Rangi and Papa). 



But of divorce and its ritual more anon. We have not vet 

 married our Polynesian couple. 



' The first marriages mentioned in Maori myth in which 

 members of this world {te ao marama, the work! of life, light, 

 or being) were concerned were those of Tiki and Tane. Tiki, 

 who was of the Po (world of Darkness or Chaos), married Ea,* 

 who was of this world. They had Kurawaka, who married 

 Tane-nui-a-rangi, one of the offspring of Rangi and Papa. 

 Hence the expression Te Aitanga a Tiki (the Offspring of 

 Tiki) is applied to man by the Maori people. 



* Compare Ea of PlicBnician mythology. 

 2— Trans. 



