207 
But we may well ask, are these migration-legends not as mythi- 
cal as those on the creation of New Zealand? In my opinion, 
Mr. C. Schirren has adopted the only correct method of interpret- 
ing those traditions., In a very able treatise, 1 in which the tradi- 
tions of the New Zealanders are most ingeniously analyzed, Schirren 
shows that we must not search for historical truth in those tra- 
ditions, as we thereby involve ourselves in a labyrinth of mythical 
fancies, out of which only the thread of mythical analysis can point 
the way to light. I cannot refrain from quoting here the principal 
conclusions at which Schirren has arrived; especially because the 
work of that learned gentleman seems to be hardly known by 
English writers on New Zealand, and because I believe that an 
erroneous opinion generally prevailing, is thoroughly disproved in 
it. Hawaiki etymologically means lying beneath. According to 
Schirren, it is not originally the name of an island, and has not 
a geographical, but a mythical signification. It denotes the lower 
regions, the realms of the dead . 2 In this sense, according to the 
Polynesians, Hawaiki is the beginning and the end, the place 
whence their fathers came, and to which the souls of the departed 
return. 3 But if thus the pretended home is stripped of its claims 
to reality , the migration legends will also prove to be not facts, 
but fables. Just as Maui, the Clod of the lower regions, and at 
1 C. Schirren, Die Wandersagen der Neu-Seelander und der Mauimythos. 
Riga 1856. 
2 Hawaiki in tin's sense is synonymous with Rarotonga and Raiatea. 
3 Reinga , on the North Cape of North Island, according to the notions of the 
Maoris, denotes the earthly portal, the entrance to the realms of the dead. On 
the margin of the cliff there is a cave. Through it the spirits descend; then they 
ascend a hill and finally on the spirits path, Rerenga wairu , they arrive at a lake, 
A canoe conveys them over to Hawaiki. Fleet as flitting shadows, ever escaping 
the empty grasp, they glide along towards their final home. At night especially, 
after heavy battles, the dwellers on North Cape hear the flight of the spirits as they 
rustic through the air. Chiefs ascend to heaven first, there leaving their left eye 
as a twinkling star; thence they proceed to Reinga. The path of the spirits is the 
same for all. An old Pohutukaua-tree ( Mclro&idcro $ tomenlosa) sends its branches 
down. These are the ladder for the dead. The Maoris fear, that if a white man 
were to cut those branches through, the road to eternity would be destroyed for 
ever, and the island annihilated. 
