108 
MYTHOLOGY. 
New Zealand; whilst such as are totally dissimilar to any 
other, may be supposed to belong peculiarly to themselves, 
and thus mark the turn which native thought has taken, 
after it has been cut off from every other portion of the 
world. This clearly shews how the human mind, when left 
to its own resources, without the means of cultivation and 
enlargement, becomes deteriorated, loses its manly character, 
and falls into childish frivolity and weakness ; whilst in the 
same degree that the mental powers are impaired, the fierce 
passions of the savage, brute force and violence, increase. 
The knowledge which has even now been acquired of 
the mythology of this singular race, is very imperfect ; and 
as the old people, in whose breasts it is locked up, rapidly 
pass away, much of it will perish with them. The rising 
generation is indifferent to the traditions of the past ; the 
mind being now occupied with so many fresh subjects of 
interest, which European intercourse is introducing, it can- 
not be wondered, that it should be disinclined to burthen 
itself, with long strings of names and rites, which are pre- 
served in language as dissimilar to that now spoken, as 
Spencer or Chaucer is to ours ; and this also presents a 
great difficulty in the research, as it is only the old men 
who can explain words which have long been obsolete. 
Properly speaking, the natives had no knowledge of a 
Supreme Being. They had a multitude of gods, and these 
were said to be the fathers or creators, each one of some 
department in nature*. Maori gods are so mixed up with the 
spirits of ancestors, whose worship entered largely into their 
religion, that it is difficult to distinguish one from the other. 
In fact, their traditions of the creation go back far beyond 
even the gods themselves. The Maori mythology is ex- 
* Speaking to Te Heuheu, the powerful Chief of Taupo, of God, as being 
the creator of all things, he ridiculed the idea, and said, Is there one maker of 
all things amongst you Europeans ? Is not one a carpenter, another a black- 
smith, another a ship-builder, and another a house-builder ? And so it was in 
the beginning ; one made this, another that : Tane made trees, Ru mountains, 
Tanga-roa fish, and so forth. Your religion is of to-day, ours from remote 
antiquity. Do not think then to destroy our ancient faith with your fresb- 
bdrn religion. 
