55 



Best. — Maori- Eschatology. 233 



enough of these childish tales : they are most numerous among 

 the Natives. 



I have no notes as concerning the names of the different 

 divisions of the reinga, or spirit-world. The following extract 

 is from " Nga Moteatea," p. 419 :— 



I te Reinga tuarua 

 Te whare i a Mini 



Ko te otinga atu o te wairua 

 Kei wheau ake ki te ao. 



(The second reinga, the abode of Miru, where for ever disappears 

 the soul, lest it rise again to this world.) 



The usual term applied to the spirit-world is " te reinga 

 literally " the leaping-place." Strictly speaking this is the name 

 of the departing-place of spirits for the underworld, the entrance 

 thereof. This entrance is often termed " te rerenga wairua ' : 

 (the spirit's leaping-place). It is situated at the north-western 

 extremity of the North Island of New Zealand. The spirits of 

 all Natives who die in these isles are said to pass along the ranges 

 until they reach the above place, whence they pass down to the 

 underworld as described. It is said that Natives residing in 

 the northern peninsula often see the spirits of the dead wending 

 their wav to the rerenga wairua, and that they know which are 

 spirits of chiefs and those of common people. The spirits of 

 chiefs always go on one side of food-stores, so as to avoid them, 

 while those of plebeians pass underneath such stores. 



Throughout Polynesia these departing-places of spirits of the 

 dead are situated on the western or north-western side of 

 each island or group of islands. As we have seen, the spirits 

 of the dead are supposed to return to Hawaiki, the fatherland 

 of the race, which lies far to the west of Polynesia. This seems 

 to discredit the Native belief in the underworld of spirits, but 

 still both beliefs obtain among the Maori. Probably the under- 

 world is the most ancient of these beliefs, while the idea of the 

 dead returning to Hawaiki is a sentimental growth of later 

 times, since the arrival of the race in the many-isled sea. 



No information can be obtained from the Maori to show any 

 ancient belief in different realms set apart for the souls of good 

 and evil persons when death has claimed the body. In vol. ii 

 of the Monthly Review (Wellington, 1890), in an article by 

 R. H. Gibson on " Mourning Customs," occur these words : " It 

 is clear that the Hebrew people maintained for many centuries 

 the belief that the abode of the dead lay beneath the surface 

 of the earth, and beneath the bottom of the sea ; that it was 

 a land of darkness and of shade like death itself ; a land of de- 

 struction and of confusion ; a land of no action and of no know- 

 ledge, where existed alike the evil and the good," &c. Here we 



