Curiosities of Superstition Part 20

At the sound of a couple of conch-sh.e.l.ls the chiefs present did homage, so to speak, to their new king, who was still deeply affected, and gazing on the body of one of the murdered women, his father's eldest and most loving wife, exclaimed: "Alas, Moalivu! There lies a woman truly unwearied, not only in the day but the night also; the fire consumed the fuel gathered by her hands. If we awoke in the still night, the sound of her feet reached our ears, and if harshly spoken to, she continued to labour only.

Moalivu! alas, Moalivu!"

The bodies of the victims were then wrapped up in mats, placed on a bier, and carried out of the door; but the old king was borne through a gap purposely made in the wall of the house. On arriving at the seaside, they were deposited in a canoe, the old king reclining on the deck, attended by his wife and the chief priest, who fanned away the insects. The place of sepulture was at Weilangi. There, in a grave lined with mats, were laid as "gra.s.s" the murdered women. Upon them was stretched the dying king, who was stripped of his regal ornaments, and completely enveloped in mats.

Lastly, the earth was heaped over him, though he was still alive. At the end of the ceremony the new king returned to his "palace," not unmindful of the fact that in the course of time a similar fate awaited himself.

Since the annexation of the Fiji Islands, such a scene as this has, of course, become impossible. Cannibalism, to which the Fijians were largely addicted, has also, been prohibited. Lord George Campbell, in his "Log of the Challenger," written in 1876, says that those who lived in the interior still cherished cannibalistic tendencies, and he seems to have been of opinion that cannibalism prevailed in those parts to which missionaries or civilisation had not yet penetrated. But under the firm rule of Sir Arthur Gordon it was doubtless extirpated.

Even in Lord George Campbell's time the change effected by the sacred influence of Christianity had been "great indeed." A party of English officers made a boat-excursion to the large island of Bau, where the king lived. They found him dressed in a waist-cloth, lying on his face in a hut, reading the Bible. Not far distant were the great stones against which they used to kill the sacrificial victims, battering their heads against them till dead. There too they saw a great religious "maki-maki,"

hundreds of men and women dancing, and singing New Testament verses before Wesleyan missionaries, who, sitting at a table, received the money-offerings of their converts as they defiled before them dancing and singing.

We have sketched a hideous scene belonging to the past, and a.s.sociated with the darkest superst.i.tions of the Fijians. We shall adapt from Lord George Campbell a more pleasing picture, in which the past mingles with the present, and the old and the new are not unhappily blended.

The chronicler of the cruise of the "Challenger" was witness of a native dance or "maki-maki," given at Kandavu in honour of the English officers.

When he landed the first "set" had already begun, and torches, consisting of bundles of palm branches tied together, threw a lurid light over the savage scene. On a strip of gra.s.s in front of the huts were gathered the dancers, and close around grouped picturesquely on the top of great piles of cocoa-nuts, or squatting on the ground, were the natives of Kandavu and the neighbouring villages, officiating as critics, but prepared in their turn to take part in the wild revelry.

"Glorious Rembrandt effects, as the torches' flames leapt and fell in the still night air, bathing with ruddy glow that strange scene around,--the semi-nude dusky natives chattering, laughing, glistening eyes and white gleaming teeth, on the reed-built huts, on the foliage above, and flus.h.i.+ng redly up the white trunks of the cocoa-palms. Round a standing group of tawny-hued boys and girls who formed the band, some two dozen men, dressed in fantastic manner, their faces blackened, and skins s.h.i.+ny with cocoa-nut oil, were dancing. Wound round their waists they wore great rolls of tappa, or white cloth, falling nearly to the knees, and over these, belts fringed with long narrow streamers of brightly coloured stuff--red, yellow, and white, surging and rustling with every movement; on their heads turbans of finely-beaten tappa, transparent and gauzy, piled high in a peak; gaiters of long black seaweed or gra.s.s, strung with white beads; anklets and armlets of large bone rings, or of beads worked in patterns; tortoisesh.e.l.l bracelets and bead necklaces, from which hung in front one great curled boar's tusk. Some are dressed better than others, but all in the same wild style. Moving slowly in a circle round and round the band, whose clapping and rollicking strain they accompanied by a loud droning kind of chant, at the end of each stave chiming in with the band with a simultaneous shout, a sudden swaying of the body, a loud hollow clap of the hands, once or twice repeated, and a heavy stamp, stamp of the feet; a moment's halt and silence, broken plaintively by one of the singers, quickly taken up by the remainder to a clapping, rattling, and vowely measure, and again the dancers circle slowly round, swinging their arms and bodies, clapping, shouting, and droning in faultless time together."

The first dances were dances of peace; pantomimic representations of the chief pursuits of a Fijian's life, as, for instance, fishermen hauling in their lines, or the tillers of the field planting tare and gathering in their crops.

Next came the war dances, which reproduced the incidents of the past, incidents never likely to be repeated under British rule. A solitary singer began the strain, and the others gradually joined in,--clappingly, jinglingly, bubblingly, slightly nasally, a strange ring audible throughout, and not less audible the stirring boom of a bamboo drum.

Suddenly, from out the surrounding gloom, against which in strong contrast stood the white stems of the cocoa-trees, and into the red light of the torches, merged slowly one after another, in Indian file, a string of "mad, savage-looking devils." Crouching and bounding, now backwards, now forwards, from side to side, they gradually approached. Their hands carried great clubs, the tips of which were decked with white plumes of silvery "reva-reva," flas.h.i.+ng whitely as they were whirled around; their fantastic finery rustling loudly with every wild movement, eyeb.a.l.l.s glaring out from blackened faces, their motions sudden and simultaneous, their splendid stalwart forms swelling with muscles and s.h.i.+ning with oil,--they looked "awfully savage and fine;" and to a captive bound and about to be eaten, one would imagine well that the whole performance would be thoroughly enjoyable.

"Now stealthily working their arms and clubs, as if feeling their victim, then with a shout bounding forward, brandis.h.i.+ng aloft their clubs, suddenly, as if struck by some unseen hand, falling to the ground on bended knee, swaying first to the right, then to the left, and bringing their clubs down with an ominous thud; again leaping up, bounding back, from side to side, then to the right-about, and all over the place; it is impossible for me to attempt describing them, so I won't. They were, I suppose, braining enemies by the dozen, and as they worked themselves into mad excitement, so the more they bounded, smashed their enemies'

heads, and were happy. Their drilling was admirable; standing in line with the string, every club whirled as one, every bound and frantic motion went together, and we are told they make fine soldiers, as far as drill is concerned, from this idea of time that they have. In their dances they were led by a small boy--a chief's son, this function being their prerogative,--a lithe tawny little savage, with a great mop of frizzled yellow hair, and his face dabbed with charcoal. In his hands he carried an enormous palm-leaf fan, with which he directed the dancers. Going through all the movements of the dance, he at the same time careered over the ground, now shouting loud words of command to the singers, and now to the dancers, yards away on their flanks. He was simply splendid, flying about like a demented demon, here, there, and everywhere, the dancers, whether their backs were turned or not, all keeping exact time with him. As these men appeared, so, slowly, still bounding voicelessly, terrifically about, and whirling their clubs, they vanished into the darkness."

Out of darkness cometh light, and a future, irradiated by the light of Christianity, succeeds to the ghastly past of Fiji, with all its cruel and odious superst.i.tions.

NOTE ON THE POLYNESIAN ISLANDS.

_Exorcism._

When Captain Moresby, of H.M.S. Basilisk, visited Shepherd Isle, near the Torres group, he found himself compelled to submit to a curious process of exorcism before he was permitted to land.

A "devil-man," fantastically painted, and adorned with leaves and flowers, waded out to meet his boat, waving a bunch of palm leaves round his head, and as the captain jumped on sh.o.r.e, the devil-man rushed at him, and grasping his right hand, waved the palms round his head in the same manner. It was evident that he meant no harm, and the captain therefore offered no resistance. He placed the leaves in the captain's right hand and a small twig in his own mouth, and then, as if with a great effort, drew out the twig,--which was supposed to extract the evil spirit,--and blew violently, as if to hurry it away. Afterwards the captain held a twig between _his_ teeth, and the devil-man repeated the process, all the while showing signs of strong excitement.

"He led me then," says Captain Moresby, "to the edge of the bush, and I began to feel rather reluctant, and doubtful as to how all was going to end, but thought I had better see it out. Here two sticks, ornamented with leaves, were fixed in the ground, and bent to an angle at the top, with leaves tied to the point, and round these sticks the devil-man and I raced in breathless circles till I was perfectly dizzy. He, however, did not seem to mind it at all, and presently flew off with me up a steep path into the bush, where at a short distance we came to two smaller sticks crossed; here he dropped my hand, and taking the bunch of palm leaves from me, waved them, and sprang over the sticks and back again. Then placing both his hands on my shoulders, he leaped with extraordinary agility, bringing his knees to the level of my face at each bound, as if to show that he had conquered the devil, and was now trampling him into the earth.

When he had leaped for awhile, he made signs that all was over, and we walked back together to the officers, who had been rather anxiously watching these singular proceedings. The natives, who had kept quietly aloof, now came freely about us, and showed by their manner that they considered us free of the island."

CHAPTER XIV.

_THE RELIGION OF THE MAORIES._

We meet in New Zealand with that curious system of "taboo" or "tapu" which prevails throughout the greater part of the Polynesian Archipelago; a system evidently conceived in the interest of the priesthood, and forming, to a great extent, the basis of its power.

We meet also with a recognition of the two Principles of Good and Evil, whose antagonism colours the creed of almost every race.

The Good Spirit of the Maories is called Atua; the Evil Spirit, Wairua.

All evil spirits, or all the objects representing them, are known as Wairuas, and all the emblems or types of the Good Spirit as Atuas; but there is one supreme Goodness, one great and overruling G.o.d, to which the name of Atua is also applied.

According to Mr. Angas, the _Kakariki_, or green lizard, is specially venerated as an Atua. On one occasion, during the early days of Christian mission work in New Zealand, a missionary was examining a phial of green lizards, and a Maori entering the room, the missionary showed it to him.

Whereupon the Maori immediately exhibited all the signs of extreme terror, and exclaiming, "I shall die! I shall die!" proceeded to crawl away on his hands and knees. Any novel object, any object beyond the intelligence of the Maories, they convert into an Atua. Thus, a barometer is an Atua, because it indicates changes of weather; a compa.s.s, because it points to the north; a watch, because it mysteriously records the progress of time.

Not to these typical atuas, however, does the Maori render the homage of prayer and praise; this he reserves for the supreme and unseen Atua, and offers through the agency of his priests or tohungas. It is to be feared that these prayers are often unintelligible to those on whose behalf they are offered, but the Maories do not the less heartily believe in them; and, indeed, the history of religion all over the world presents innumerable ill.u.s.trations of the fact that faith is not incompatible with ignorance. It is the very essence and secret of Superst.i.tion. Whether they understand the prayers of the tohungas or not, they delight in their frequent repet.i.tion, and insist upon their use in almost every circ.u.mstance of life. They are generally accompanied by offerings of animal and vegetable food, which, of course, become the perquisites of the tohungas.

The Maori priesthood is hereditary, father transmits his office to son, after carefully educating him in its duties. Dr. Dieffenbach was present when an aged tohunga was giving a lesson to a neophyte. The old priest, he says, was sitting under a tree, with part of a man's skull, filled with water, by his side. At intervals he dipped a green branch into the water, and sprinkled the hand of a boy, who reclined at his feet, and listened attentively to his recital of a long string of words. Dr. Dieffenbach doubts the common statement that the prayers are often without meaning, while agreeing that they are unintelligible to the majority of the wors.h.i.+ppers. He thinks they are couched in a language now forgotten; or, what is more probable, that among the Maories as among many of the nations of antiquity, the religious mysteries are carefully confined to a certain cla.s.s of men, who conceal them from the _profanum vulgus_, or reveal only such portions as they think proper. The claims of the exponents of an artificial creed must necessarily depend in a great degree upon the amount of mystery in which they involve it. With the common people familiarity breeds contempt; they venerate that only which they do not understand; it is darkness and not light which moves their wonder, and excites their awe.

Devoid as it is of elevated attributes, the religion of the Maori rises above some of the Polynesian creeds in its acknowledgment of the immortality of man, though on this point its teaching is very vague.

The Maori believes that, after death, his soul enters the Reinga, or abode of departed spirits; and, with an unwonted touch of poetry, he looks upon shooting and falling stars as souls pa.s.sing swiftly to this undiscovered bourne; the entrance to which he supposes to lie beneath a precipice at Cape Maria Van Diemen. The spirits in falling are supposed to rest momentarily, in order to break the descent, against an ancient tree, which grows about half way down. The natives were wont to indicate a particular branch as being the halting-place of the spirits; but a missionary having cut it off, the tree has of late diminished in sanct.i.ty.

The entrance to the Reinga is not accomplished by all spirits in the same manner. Those of the chiefs ascend in the first place to the upper heavens, where each chief leaves his left eye, this left eye becoming a new star. Hence the custom in Maori warfare for the victor to eat the left eye of a chief slain in battle, in the conviction that by this process he absorbed into his own system the skill, sagacity, and courage of the departed.

It is humiliating, perhaps, to record these ill.u.s.trations of human folly; but they are valuable as proofs of the depths to which Humanity descends when unaided by the elevating influence of revealed religion.

According to the Maories, the soul is not confined absolutely within the limits of the Reinga, but may at its will revisit "the glimpses of the moon," and converse with its former friends and kinsmen,--of course, only through the medium of the tohungas. The latter are sometimes favoured with a view of the spiritual visitor, who takes the form of a sunbeam or a shadow, and speaks with a low whistling voice, like the sound of a light air pa.s.sing through trees. This voice is occasionally heard by the uninitiated, but the language it speaks can be comprehended by none but the tohungas.

Respecting the wairuas, it is difficult to gather any satisfactory information. The word "wairua" means either "a dream," or "the soul," and Dr. Dieffenbach says it is chiefly used to signify the spirit of some dead man or woman who is supposed to cherish a malignant feeling towards the living. The wairuas frequent certain localities, such as mountain-tops, which the Maori consequently takes good care not to visit.

It is a necessary result of the Maori belief in atuas and wairuas that these should foster a belief in witchcraft. Individuals of bolder and stronger minds than the majority will always claim a special relations.h.i.+p to the unseen Powers, and avail themselves of this pretended relations.h.i.+p to work upon the popular imagination. Convince the ignorant of the existence of evil deities, and he will listen readily to any who tell him that they can s.h.i.+eld him from their malignant influence. And then it naturally follows, "as the night the day," that all misfortunes arising from unseen or unintelligible causes, will be attributed to witchcraft. A vast--an almost boundless field is thus opened up to the practice of human unscrupulousness and the weakness of human incredulity.

Let a Maori chief lose some valued article, or suffer from an attack of illness, and he immediately concludes that he has been bewitched. Who has bewitched him? He fixes, as a matter of course, on the individual whom he conceives to be his enemy, and orders him to be put to death. Or he resorts to some potent witch, and bribes her to exercise her influence to remove the maleficent spell under which he is labouring.

According to Dr. Dieffenbach, the particular haunt of the witches is--or rather _was_, for Christianity has rapidly extended its blessed power over the population of New Zealand--a place called Urewera, in the North Island, between Hawkes Bay and Taupo. The natives of this wild and deserted district are reported to be the greatest witches in the country; are much feared and studiously avoided by the neighbouring tribes. When they come down to the coast, the natives there are almost afraid to oppose their most extravagant demands, lest they should incur their displeasure.

It is said that they use the saliva of the people they design to bewitch, and, therefore, visitors carefully conceal it, so as to deprive them of the opportunity of working mischief. Yet, like the witches and sorcerers of mediaeval England, they appear to be more sinned against than sinning, and by no means to deserve the ill reputation which attaches to them.

It is a curious fact, says Dr. Dieffenbach, which has been noticed in Tahiti, Hawaii, and the Polynesian islands generally, that the first intercourse of their inhabitants with Europeans produces civil war and social degradation, but that a change of ideas is rapidly effected, and the most ancient and apparently inveterate prejudices soon become a subject of ridicule, and are swept away. The grey priest, or tohunga, skilled in all the mysteries of witchcraft and native medical treatment, readily yields in his attendance on the sick to every European who possesses, or affects to possess, a knowledge of the science of surgery or medicine, and laughs at the former credulity of his patient. It is evident that, while deceiving others, he never deceived himself, and was well aware of the futility of his pretended remedies.

When a New Zealand chief or his wife fell sick, the most influential tohunga, or some woman enjoying a special odour of sanct.i.ty, was instantly called in, and waited night and day upon the patient, sometimes repeating incantations over him, and sometimes sitting in front of the house, and praying. The following is the incantation which the priests profess to be a cure for headache. The officiant pulls out two stalks of the _Pteris esculenta_, from which the fibres of the root must be removed, and beating them together over the patient's head, says this chant. It is ent.i.tled, "A prayer for the sick man, when his head aches: to Atua this prayer is offered, that the sick man may become well."

On the occasion of a chiefs illness, all his kith and kin gather around his house, and give way to the loudest lamentations, in which the invalid is careful to join. When the weeping and wailing capacities of one village have been exhausted he is carried to another, and the process is repeated.

But in New Zealand, as elsewhere, the common lot cannot be averted by sorrowing humanity; the sick man dies; and then all that remains to the survivors is to show their respect and regret by such funeral pomp as they are able to devise. They a.s.semble round the dead body, after it has been equipped in its bravest attire, and indulge in the most violent demonstrations of grief,--partly feigned, no doubt, but partly sincere.

This luxury of woe, however, is chiefly accorded to the women, who display that extravagance of pa.s.sion we are accustomed to regard as characteristic of the Southern nations. They throw themselves upon the ground, wrap their faces and bodies in their mantles, shriek and sob aloud, wave their arms frantically in the air, and finally gash and scar their skin with long, deep cuts, which they fill in with charcoal until they become indelible records of the loss they have sustained. Funeral orations, full of the most vehement eulogies, and interrupted by complaints and reproaches against the dead man for his unkindness in going away from them, are incessantly delivered. These ceremonies completed, they place the corpse in a kind of coffin, along with various emblems of the rank of the departed, and leave it to decay.

The process of decomposition is completed in about seven or eight months; the ceremony of the _hahunga_ then takes place. The friends and relatives a.s.semble; the bones are removed from the coffin, and cleaned; a supply of provisions is pa.s.sed around; a new series of funeral panegyric is spoken; and the _tiki_, _merai_, and other symbols of the departed chieftain's heads.h.i.+p are handed over to his eldest son, who is thus invested with his father's power and privileges.

The place where the dead body lies while undergoing decomposition, the waki-tapu, as it is called, is frequently distinguished by peculiar signs, and the neighbourhood left uninhabited. Mr. Angas describes a visit which he paid to the village of Huriwonua. Its chief had died about six weeks before the visit, and Mr. Angas, on arriving there, found it entirely deserted. "From the moment the chief was laid beneath the upright canoe, on which were inscribed his name and rank, the whole village, he says, became strictly tapu, or sacred, and not a native, on pain of death, was permitted to trespa.s.s near the spot. The houses were all fastened up, and on most of the doors were inscriptions denoting that the property of such an one remained there. An utter silence pervaded the place. After ascertaining," says Mr. Angas, "that no natives were in the vicinity of the forbidden spot, I landed, and trod the sacred ground; and my footsteps were probably the first, since the desertion of the village, that had echoed along its palisaded pa.s.sages.

"On arriving at the tomb, I was struck with the contrast between the monument of the savage and that of the civilised European. In the erection of the latter, marble and stone and the most durable of metals are employed, while rapidly-decaying wood, red ochre, and feathers form the decorations of the Maori tomb. Huriwonua having been buried only six weeks, the ornaments of the _waki-tapu_, or sacred place, as those erections are called, were fresh and uninjured. The central upright canoe was thickly painted with black and red, and at the top was written the name of the chief; above which there hung in cl.u.s.ters bunches of _kaka_ feathers, forming a large ma.s.s at the summit of the canoe. A double fence of high palings, also painted red, and ornamented with devices in arabesque work, extended round the grave, and at every fastening of flax, when the horizontal rails were attached to the upright fencing, were stuck two feathers of the albatross, the snowy whiteness of which contrasted beautifully with the sombre black and red of the remainder of the monument."