Blyth. — On ''The Wheme of the Maori." 535 



sentative of the celestial Aditi (space), Pani is a terrestrial 

 Marikoriko/'^ " ' The god Pan,' says Mr. Kendall to Dr. Waugh, 

 ' is universally acknowledged. The overflowing of the Nile, and 

 the fertility of the country in consequence, are evidently alluded 

 to in their traditions. . . , Query. — Are not the Malay and 

 the whole of the South Sea Islanders Egyptians ?' "To which," 

 says Mr. Colenso, " we reply. When will the spirit of conjecture 

 rest ?" Whether Mr. Kendall alluded to Pani (in the capacity of 

 a female Pan) when he said the god Pan was universally 

 acknowledged in New Zealand, I cannot undertake to say : 

 but Mr. Colenso has told us sufficient about Pani, in his 

 interesting and valuable papers, that I think a lawyer might 

 make out a very fair case for defendant, and prove from Mr. 

 Colenso's own communications that there are several features in 

 the tradition of Pani that connect her with Ms ; and this is 

 not to be wondered at, for she is the earth goddess, the Ceres, Isis, 

 Mahadeo or Kali of the New Zealauders ; that is, the mother 

 from whose womb the fruits of the earth are derived — a 

 goddess peculiarly the object of devotion to the Turanians, who 

 were emphatically the agriculturists of the ancient world. The 

 Polynesians resemble the Egyptians, just as far as the Egyptians 

 can be shown to be one with the Turanian nations of India. 

 Just as the soil of Egypt, which Isis personified, was fructified 

 by the Nile, so we find from Mr. Colenso's account of Pani, 

 that she, when producing the kumara, enters a river, and 

 gathers the roots with her hands from her person, and fills 

 her baskets for the ovens. This seems to me to allude to a time 

 when the New Zealanders dwelt in a tropical country, when 

 the cultivations were planted after the floods had watered the 

 ground, or were irrigated. In India pani is water, but whether 

 the Maori goddess derived her name from this, I shall not even 

 conjecture, though the sea as well as the earth was deemed a 

 womb of Nature. Pani may be equal to the Hindu yoni, the 

 female generative organ. 



" The kumara," says Mr. Stack, " and aruhe were the off- 

 spring of Huruki and Pani ; aruhe (fern-root) was the ariki (lord), 

 because it descended from the back of its parent ; while the 

 kumara, having come from the front, was inferior in rank. 



"Descend from the back, the great root of Kongi, 

 Descend from behind, the fern-root ; 

 Descend from the front, the kumara 

 By Huruki and Pani : 

 Then it was nourished in the mound, 

 The mound of Whatapu, 

 Great mound of Papa, 

 Great mound of Tauranga ; 



There was seen the contemptuous behaviour of Tu ; 

 There they were hungered after," etc., etc. 



* Quoted by Mr. Colenso, " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," vol. xi., p. 77. 



