Best. — Maori Eschatology. 149 



preservation, so as to place on record any hitherto unpublished 

 matter which they may contain, inasmuch as the " weeds of 

 Tura " have already come to me, and no man may know when 

 he may drink of the waters of Tane-pi and lift the trail of Maui 

 of old for the realm of Mini and of Hine. 



Although my notes on some items are sufficientlv numerous 

 to give a fairly good idea of Native customs in past times, yet 

 those pertaining to the ritual of burial and exhumation are 

 decidedly meagre. Of the many incantations used on such oc- 

 casions in the days of yore I have collected but few. This does 

 not, however, affect the general reader, for such matter interests 

 the specialist alone — he who seeks to understand the archaic ex- 

 pressions contained in such cryptic effusions of the ancient Maori. 



These notes have been collected from the descendants of the 

 original people of that part of the Bay of Plenty district lying 

 between Whakatane on the coast and Ruatahuna in the interior. 

 My reason for using the past tense in this paper is because many 

 of the customs herein described have fallen into disuse, while 

 others again have been modified since the introduction of Chris- 

 tianity. 



A considerable amount of interesting information anent 

 these matters may be found in the writings of the late Mr. John 

 White, Taylor's " Te Ika a Maui," and other works. 



The matter contained in this paper is given as collected 

 from the old men of the Tuhoe Tribe of Maoris, and is not made 

 to support any pet theory of my own ; for I hold that we who 

 dwell in the dark places of the earth should confine our attention 

 to placing on record original matter only, and carefully suppress 

 any desire to theorise or generalise. 



Mythical Origin of Death. 



In perusing ethnographical works we often meet with the 

 statement that certain primitive peoples or races appear to 

 be or have been imbued with the idea that death is unnatural ; 

 that in the dawn of time man was immortal, and knew not death 

 until it was introduced by some accident, or offence committed 

 against the gods. Among such peoples are invariably found 

 singular myths to account for such introduction. 



The Maori of New Zealand come under the above heading, 

 as will be shown anon. In studying Maori cosmogony and 

 anthropogeny we are first met with the statement that man is 

 descended from immortal personifications — i.e., from Rangi, the 

 Sky Parent, and Papa-tuanuku, the Earth Mother ; also that 

 from the same source sprang the sun, the moon, and the stars, 

 who are termed the " whanau marama " (the Shining Ones, 

 the Children of Light, who know not death). In the words of 



