Best. — On Maori Games. 35 



In this article I propose to deal not only with such forms 

 of amusement as pertained to the ivhare tapere, but also to 

 pass out from that edifice in order to mention certain outdoor 

 games of past generations ; for of all the ancient games of 

 Maoriland but few have survived, and those few are not as 

 the men of old knew them: the trail of the pakeha is over 

 them all. 



The Personification of Pleasure. 



Kant speaks of the category of causality as being a neces- 

 sary form of pure reason. It is highly improbable that the 

 ancient Maori had perused the works of the latter-day 

 Teutonic philosopher. There are a few chronological and 

 other reasons against such an assumption. And although 

 his primitive intellect has ever felt that causality exists, 

 yet he would but know it in an abstract form — that is to 

 say, as a law of thought. That half-knowledge, however, 

 prompted his crude mental powers to seek not the true 

 cause of things, but the agency by which they were pre- 

 sented to his sight, hearing, or understanding. Thus the 

 ancient Maori had, after how many centuries of groping 

 through the gloom, personified almost everything that came 

 under his notice. His limited mentality sought an agent for 

 all things, and that agent was invariably presented to his 

 vision in human form. Thus in the extensive and wondrous 

 Maori mythology we find personifications — i.e., anthropo- 

 morphous agents — which represent war, peace, disease, the 

 sky, the earth, the sun, moon, and stars, meteors, rainbows, 

 fire, water, fish, birds, trees, heat, the seasons, death, &c. 



In like manner are the arts of carving, weaving, &c, 

 supplied with such personifications, and a myth of a similar 

 nature is attached to the art of pleasure. Games and 

 amusements have their mythic agent or tutelary deity, to 

 whom is attributed their invention. Among the majority of 

 Maori tribes this personification or agent is Eau-kata-uri, a 

 name often coupled with that of Eau-kata-mea. To these are 

 attributed flute-playing and games of amusement. Among 

 the Tuhoe Tribe, however, the places of the above are taken 

 by Marere-o-tonga and Takataka-putea. These two mythical 

 beings were, to the Child of Tamatea,* the origin and per- 

 sonification of nga mahi a te rehia — the art of pleasure. The 

 names of many such personifications, &c, differ among the 

 Tuhoe Tribe, which may be explained by the fact that among 

 these people are preserved the purest versions of the myths, 

 rites, and legends of the original migration of Polynesians to 

 this land, a migration that probably emanated from the 



* The Child of Tamatea : A term applied to the Tuhoe Tribe. 



