16 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



terms the clan (or sept). This, he says, " is a much smaller 

 body, consisting of some three or four generations only, in 

 descent from a perfectly well-known male ancestor," &c. 

 Now, these remarks are not applicable to the social organiza- 

 tion of the Maori people. Jenks's " tribe " is equivalent to the 

 Maori hapu or sub-tribe. His " clan " is the Maori sub-/ia/^?t 

 (or sub-clan). In former times it was a poor Maori tribe 

 indeed that could not muster a thousand fighting-men. Also, 

 among the Maori a common ancestor of a tribe is by no 

 means a fictitious person. The Maori clan or sub-tribe may 

 be descendants of an ancestor who lived ten, or fifteen, or 

 more generations ago, and may consist of hundreds of indi- 

 viduals, {'ertainly it would appear that in some cases — e.g., 

 the Arawa — the primal social unit might be termed rather a 

 group of tribes, a league. But in cases where all members 

 thereof are descended from a common ancestor, and, however 

 non-cohesive in times of peace, yet group themselves ever to- 

 gether in defence against an extra-tribal enemy, and act in 

 other important matters as a political entity, then such a 

 people, or collection of peoples, must be looked upon as a 

 tribe. 



The unit of the social organization of the Maori is, I take 

 it, the consanguineous family group or sub-clan [i.e., sub- 

 hapn). Now, it would entirely depend upon the numbers of 

 such a sub clan as to whether the members thereof would 

 or would not be required by native custom to contract exo- 

 gamous marriages. Even then such unions would not be 

 exogamous in regard to the tribe or hapu. As a tribal matter 

 marriages were usually endogamous in former times. We 

 will, however, make this matter clearer by means of the 

 genealogy of a portion of a suh-hajni as an illustration. 

 Prior, however, to entering upon a description of Maori 

 marriage we will tarry a while with the gods, and invade the 

 realm of myth and animism. 



Animistic Myths and Mythical Okigin op Marriage. 



In this paper I make use of the term " marriage " to denote 

 the union or coliabiting not only of the genus homo, but also 

 of gods, heroes, mythical beings, personifications, and animatea 

 natural objects and phenomena. 



The most remote allusion to sex in Maori mythology 

 pertains to the period, long anterior to the existence of Eangi 

 and Papa-tuanuku (the Sky and Earth), when certain primor- 

 dial beings or personifications existed in the primitive chaos 

 from which the elements and all living beings have sprung. 

 These beings are said to have been bisexual, and to have pro- 

 duced offspring down to the time when earth and sky were 

 so formed, after which the progeny and descendants of the 



