62 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Kia ongaonga to kiri 



Kia rere pari 



Kia wehea i runga 



I a Papa-tuanuku raua ko Rangi 



I tokona nei e Paia, &c. 



Paia is another name for Tane. 



In the above crude ritual we observe how our own sacred 

 rites have originated. The primitive divorce rite here given 

 was a rehgious ceremony of the Maori, though we prefer to 

 term such items superstitions, or necromancy, or ma^^ic, or 

 some such title. The invocations of the umu Icotore were the 

 beginning of a marriage rite from the like of which our own 

 ceremonial system has sprung. Far back in the remote past 

 the men of old strove to build up social systems, to evolve 

 social laws, that would benefit class or nation. Ancient 

 Egypt and ancient Chaldaea broke out the trail by which the 

 Maori travelled in the years that came after. Ever strivinc^, 

 evec seeking, making for self-advancement, for national ad- 

 vancement, led on by fanaticism or love of study, and of 

 knowledge, and of power, the men of yore groped their way 

 through the gloom and evolved rites and laws, selfish, super- 

 stitious, brutal, or unjust at times, but the prototype of our 

 own. 



It does not appear that a woman could repudiate her 

 husband without just cause. If she disliked him much and 

 persisted in her design to leave him it would probably be 

 agreed to. 



Separations are rather common among the Tuhoe Tribe 

 nowadays, sometimes after children have been born. 



Widows and the Levieate. 



At the death of her husband a woman would make it her 

 business and pleasure to join in the extravagant mourning of 

 the Maori, marked by laceration of the body and doleful wail- 

 ings. Not infrequently widows committed suicide by strangu- 

 lation or starvation on the death of the husband out of grief 

 and affection {ka tohakangakau hi ta ratau tane). Moeren- 

 haut seems to imply that they were strangled on the tomb of 

 the husband, but my authorities make it self-destruction, not 

 at the hands of anotlier person. 



The term maro jJurua is applied to a woman who marries 

 again after the death of her husband, in whicb case she might 

 retain her children by the first husband, or her relatives might 

 adopt and rear them. 



The levirate was essentially a Maori custom — that is to 

 say, the custom of a widow marrying the brother of her 

 deceased husband. It was evidently an ancient law, and 

 appears to have been generally followed. The widow was 



