230 Transactions. 



afar off. But the ka continued to abide in the body after death, 

 whereas the Maori wairua leaves the body at death and descends 

 to Hades, the underworld, ' Te Po," as the Maori terras it. 

 Po signifies night ; po uri = darkness ; hence, apparently, 

 " the realm of darkness," or oblivion ; although other evi- 

 dence seems to support the idea that the underworld is by no 

 means a realm of darkness, and that the dead lead there a life 

 very much like life in the upper world. This world and this 

 life are termed the " ao marama " (world of light), as opposed to 

 the po, or world of death. 



The Maori had neither evolved nor borrowed a belief in a 

 soul, or psyche, which is judged after death and punished or 

 rewarded as for evil or good deeds committed in this world. 

 No such distinction exists in the Maori spirit-world. The old- 

 time Maori looked forward to no condition of calm peace and 

 happiness in the next world, nor to any sensual pleasures. On 

 the other hand, however, he was not terrorised by threats of 

 raging hell-fires waiting for him, as are we. 



The Maori was ever a firm believer in and practiser of necro- 

 latry, pschomancy, physiolatry, and oneirology. 



If when a person's wairua is absent from the body it comes 

 under the effect of spells of black magic it is destroyed, and 

 its physical basis, the body, also perishes. But during such 

 rambles it often discovers some danger threatening the body, 

 and returns to warn it. On awaking from sleep a man might 

 say, " So-and-so is trving to bewitch me, my wairua has warned 

 me." 



A Maori dislikes to awake a person suddenly, as by shaking 

 him. His wairua may be absent on a little jaunt: it is well 

 to give it time to re-enter the body. 



Maori religion is essentially polytheistic — very much so. 

 And yet we see, in some very ancient and fragmentary tokens 

 of a former cult, evidence that at some remote period in the 

 history of the race either monotheism or something akin to it 

 must have prevailed. I refer to the cult of Io. 



Animistic conceptions teem in Maori myth— they form its 

 most notable feature ; and a very interesting monograph might 

 be compiled on this subject. The anima mundi theory is quite 

 Maori. 



The wairua (spirit) of man is an intelligent, a sentient spirit. 

 It leaves the body at death, and either descends at once to the 

 underworld, or remains near its physical basis as a kehua, or 

 spirit-ghost. These ghosts are much feared by the Natives, 

 for they can inflict grievous injuries on the living. 



Nearly all Maori gods may be termed ancestral, though I 

 have never heard the term applied to Io — he who formed or 



