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POLYNESIAN MYTHOLOGY & ANCIENT TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF THE NEW ZEALANDERS
This book was especially republished to raise funds for these charities & many more...
33% of the publishers profit from the sale of this book will be donated to charities.
A GREAT READ FOR ALL AGES
This book contains 24 Maori folk tales, legends and myths. Tales like The Legend of Maui, Kae's Theft of the Whale, The Legend of Poutini and Whaiapu, The Voyage to New Zealand, The Story of Hine-Moa and many more. These tales were compiled by Sir George Grey, Governor General, and later Premier, of New Zealand.
TOWARDS the close of 1845 Sir George Grey was unexpectedly requested to administer the affairs of New Zealand. On arrival he found the Maori tribes engaged in hostilities with the Queen's troops, against whom they had contended with considerable success.
He quickly realised he could neither successfully govern, nor hope to conciliate, with a people whose language, manners, customs and religion he was quite unacquainted. He decided that he should be acquainted with the language of the New Zealanders in order to redress their grievances. With no published Maori dictionary, nor books to study its construction, he found this to be a most difficult task.
To his surprise he found that the Maori chiefs, in their speeches or in their letters, frequently quoted fragments of ancient poems or proverbs, or made allusions which rested on an ancient system of mythology. This gave him further impetus to learn the language of the country. For more than eight years he devoted a great part of his available time to collecting these ancient myths, poems and legends, working in his spare moments in every part of the country. Once, when he had amassed a large amount of materials to aid him in his studies, the Government House was destroyed by fire, and with it were burnt the materials he had so painstakingly collected, and thus he was left to recommence his difficult task.
The ultimate result, however, was the collection of a large mass of materials. He felt unwilling that the result of his labours should be lost to those whose duty it may be thereafter to deal with the natives of New Zealand; and he undertook to published his extensive collection of ancient traditional poems, religious chants and songs of the Maori race. It is in this volume that Sir George Grey first presented to the European reader in 1854 the first written record and translation of the principal portions of ancient Maori mythology and of some of their most interesting legends.
33% of the net profit from this book will be donated to the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal.
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Excerpt from POLYNESIAN MYTHOLOGY & ANCIENT TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF THE NEW ZEALANDERS
THE TWO SORCERERS - KO TE MATENGA O KIKI
ONCE UPON A TIME Kiki was a celebrated sorcerer, and skilled in magical arts; he lived upon the river Waikato. The inhabitants of that river still have this proverb: 'The offspring of Kiki wither shrubs'. This proverb had its origin in the circumstance of Kiki being such a magician, that he could not go abroad in the sunshine; for if his shadow fell upon any place not protected from his magic, it at once became tapu, and all the plants there withered.
This Kiki was thoroughly skilled in the practice of sorcery. If any parties coming up the river called at his village in their canoes as they paddled by, he still remained quietly at home, and never troubled himself to come out, but just drew back the sliding door of his house, so that it might stand open, and the strangers stiffened and died; or even as canoes came paddling down from the upper parts of the river, he drew back the sliding wooden shutter to the window of his house, and the crews on board of them were sure to die.
At length, the fame of this sorcerer spread exceedingly, and resounded through every tribe, until Tamure, a chief who dwelt at Kawhia, heard with others, reports of the magical powers of Kiki, for his fame extended over the whole country. At length Tamure thought he would go and contend in the arts of sorcery with Kiki, that it might be seen which of them was most skilled in magic; and he arranged in his own mind a fortunate season for his visit.
When this time came, he selected two of his people as his companions, and he took his young daughter with him also; and they all crossed over the mountain range from Kawhia, and came down upon the river Waipa, which runs into the Waikato, and embarking there in a canoe, paddled down the river towards the village of Kiki; and they managed so well, that before they were seen by anybody, they had arrived at the landing-place. Tamure was not only skilled in magic, but he was also a very cautious man; so whilst they were still afloat upon the river, he repeated an incantation of the kind called 'Mata-tawhito', to preserve him safe from all arts of sorcery; and he repeated other incantations, to ward off spells, to protect him from magic, to collect good genii round him, to keep off evil spirits, and to shield him from demons; when these preparations were all finished, they landed, and drew up their canoe on the beach, at the landing-place of Kiki.
As soon as they had landed, the old sorcerer called out to them that they were welcome to his village, and invited them to come up to it: so they went up to the village: and when they reached the square in the centre, they seated themselves upon the ground; and some of Kiki's people kindled fire in an enchanted oven, and began to cook food in it for the strangers. Kiki sat in this house, and Tamure on the ground just outside the entrance to it, and he there availed himself of this opportunity to repeat incantations over the threshold of the house, so that Kiki might be enchanted as he stepped over it to come out. When the food in the enchanted oven was cooked, they pulled off the coverings, and spread it out upon clean mats.
The old sorcerer now made his appearance out of his house and he invited Tamure to come and eat food with him; but the food was all enchanted, and his object in asking Tamure to eat with him was, that the enchanted food might kill him; therefore Tamure said that his young daughter was very hungry, and would eat of the food offered to them; he in the meantime kept on repeating incantations of the kind called Mata-tawhito, Whakangungu, and Parepare, protections against enchanted food, and as she ate she also continued to repeat them; even when she stretched out her hand to take a sweet potato, or any other food, she dropped the greater part of it at her feet, and hid it under her clothes, and then only ate a little bit. After she had done, the old sorcerer, Kiki, kept waiting for Tamure to begin to eat also of the enchanted food, that he might soon die. Kiki having gone into his house again, Tamure still sat on the ground outside the door, and as he had enchanted the threshold of the house, he now repeated incantations which might render the door enchanted also, so that Kiki might be certain not to escape when he passed out of it. By this time Tamure's daughter had quite finished her meal, but neither her father nor either of his people had partaken of the enchanted food.
Tamure now ordered his people to launch his canoe, and they paddled away, and a little time after they had left the village, Kiki became unwell; in the meanwhile, Tamure and his people were paddling homewards in all haste, and as they passed a village where there were a good many people on the river's bank, Tamure stopped, and said to them: 'If you should see any canoe pulling after us, and the people in the canoe ask you, have you seen a canoe pass up the river, would you be good enough to say: "Yes, a canoe has passed by here"?--and then, if they ask you: "How far has it got?" would you be good enough to say: "Oh, by this time it has got very far up the river"?'--and having thus said to the people of that village, Tamure paddled away again in his canoe with all haste.
Some time after Tamure's party had left the village of Kiki, the old sorcerer became very ill indeed, and his people then knew that this had been brought about by the magical arts of Tamure, and they sprang into a canoe to follow after him, and puffed up the river as hard as they could; and when they reached the village where the people were on the river's bank, they called out and asked them: 'How far has the canoe reached, which passed up the river?'--and the villagers answered: 'Oh, that canoe must got very far up the river by this time.' The people in the canoe that was pursuing Tamure, upon hearing this, returned again to their own village, and Kiki died from the incantations of Tamure.
Some of Kiki's descendants are still living--one of them, named Mokahi, recently died at Tau-ranga-a-Ruru, but Te Maioha is still living on die river Waipa. Yes, some of the descendants of Kiki, whose shadow withered trees, are still living. He was indeed a great sorcerer: he overcame every other sorcerer until he met Tamure, but be was vanquished by him, and had to bend the knee before him.
Tamure has also some descendants living, amongst whom are Mahu and Kiake of the Ngati-Mariu tribe; these men arc also skilled in magic: if a father skilled in magic died, he left his incantation to his children; so that if a man was skilled in sorcery, it was known that his children would have a good knowledge of the same arts, as they were certain to have derived it from their parent.
Table of Contents for POLYNESIAN MYTHOLOGY & ANCIENT TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF THE NEW ZEALANDERS
| Preface |
| Children of Heaven and Earth |
| The Legend of Maui |
| The Legend of Tawhaki |
| Rupe's Ascent into Heaven |
| Kae's Theft of the Whale |
| The Murder of Tuwhakararo |
| The Legend of Rata |
| The Legend of Toi-te-huatahi and Tama-te-kapua |
| The Legend of Poutini and Whaiapu |
| The Voyage to New Zealand |
| The Curse of Manaia |
| The Legend of Hatupatu and His Brothers |
| Legend of the Emigration of Turi |
| Legend of the Emigration of Manaia |
| The Story of Hine-Moa |
| The Story of Maru-tuahu, the Son of Hotunui, and of Kahurare-moa, the daughter of Paka |
| The Two Sorcerers |
| The Magical Wooden Head |
| The Art of Netting Learned by Kahukura from the Fairies |
| Te Kanawa's Adventure with a Troop of Fairies |
| The Loves of Takarangi and Rau-mahora |
| Stratagem of Puhihuia's Elopement with Te Ponga |
| The Story of Te Huhuti |
| Appendix |
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