TRANSACTIONS 



OF THE 



NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE. 



Art. I. — The Maori Genius for Personification ; with Illustrations of 



Maori Mentality. 



By Elsdon Best, F.N. Z.Inst. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 18th May, 1920 ; received by Editor, 

 18th May, 1920 ; issued separately, 27th June, 1921.] 



Of the singular mythopoetic concepts of the Maori folk, and their inner 

 meaning, but little has been recorded. Such information on native myths 

 as is contained in published works is in most cases a bare and hard trans- 

 lation, a soulless rendering of the original that ignores the vivifying spirit 

 of the myth and the teachings that it contains. The spirit that prompted 

 the evolution of such concepts is ignored, or perhaps not understood. 

 The cause of this neglect lies in our ignorance of the mentality of uncultured 

 man, and of his endeavours, in times long past, to seek and explain the 

 origin of man, of natural phenomena, and many other things. In the 

 peculiar plane of mental culture pertaining to such folk as the Maori, such 

 matters are taught in the form of allegorical myths, and the most remark- 

 able feature of such myths is that of personification. At some remote 

 period the Maori strove to envisage primal causes, to grasp the origin of 

 life, of manifestations, and of tangible objects. In these endeavours he 

 trod the path followed by other folk of a similar culture stage, and his 

 mental concepts, his myths, teem with personified forms and with illus- 

 trations of animatism. Personifications hinge upon animatism ; for given 

 the belief that all natural objects and phenomena possess an indwelling 

 and vivifying spirit, then such a spirit is always apt to develop into a per- 

 sonified form. These primitive beliefs, coupled with that which looks upon 

 all things as having come from a common source, contain the kernel of 

 Maori mythology. 

 1— Trans. 



