TE REINGA, THE MAORI SPIRIT-LAND
The empty forms of men inhabit there;
Impassive semblances, images of air.—The Odyssey.
In the extreme north of the North Island of New Zealand is the Muri-whenua, the Land’s End, where the never-resting surges thunder at the feet of the bare rocky capes, and the giant sea-kelp swirls in long snaky masses round the fabled gateway to the Maori spirit-land. For here is Te Reinga, otherwise called Te Rerenga-Wairua, or the Place where the Spirits take their Flight. Te Reinga is a long craggy ridge that dips down to the ocean, ending in a rocky point whence the ghosts of the departed take their final plunge into the realms of darkness and oblivion. The souls (wairua) of the dead, the moment they are released from their earthly tenements, travel northwards until they arrive at the Land’s End of Ao-tea-roa. As they near the Reinga, crossing sand-dune and stony cliff, treading with viewless feet the wild precipices whose bases are ever licked ravenously by the wilder ocean, the spirits bethink them of their old homes. And they pause awhile on the wind-swept heights, and gaze backwards over the long and dreary way by which they came; and they wail aloud, and lacerate themselves after the fashion of the mourners of this world, with sharp splinters of volcanic glass (mata-tuhua), and in proof thereof these mata are to be seen there to this day by living man. They deck their heads with paréparé, or mourning chaplets of green leaves, and their weird, ghostly wails for the Land of Light they are leaving mingle with the melancholy voice of the ocean winds. The long flax leaves which spring from the rocky soil on these heights above the Reinga are often found knotted and twisted together in a peculiar manner. The pakeha says this is the work of the ever restless winds and eddying gales which sweep the Land’s End. But to the Maori those knotted leaves are the work of the sad spirits of their departed, tied by the ghosts as they pass along to the gates of Po, to show their sorrowing friends the way they took in leaving this world of day. And the waterfalls cease their sound as the ghosts flit by;
Trembling the spectres glide, and plaintive vent
Thin hollow screams, along the steep descent.
Down along the narrow ridge to the tideway they move, until they reach the ghostly leaping-place, tapu to the manes of the innumerable multitude of dead. Here grew a venerable pohutukawa tree, gnarled and knotty, with great ropy roots trailing to the tide. By these roots the spirits dropped to the sea, loosing their last grip of Ao-tea-roa to the dirge of the screaming sea-birds and the moaning waves. Below, the tossing sea-kelp opens a moment to receive the wairua, and then the dark waters close over them for ever. This is the Tatau-o-te-Po, the Door of Death, which is the entrance to the gloomy Kingdom of Miru, the Goddess of Eternal Night.
Many an Ossianic concept, many a weird and poetic fancy, is woven by the Maoris round this haunted spot. This is a fragment of an ancient lament for the dead, sung to this day at Maori tangis:
TE REINGA
“E tomo, e Pa
Ki Murimuri-te-Po,
Te Tatau-o-te-Po.
Ko te whare tena
O Rua-Kumea,
O Rua-toia,
O Miru ra-e!
O tuhouropunga,
O kaiponu-kino.
Nana koe i maka
Ki te kopae o te whare i!”
(“Enter, oh sire,
The gates of that last land,
So dread and dark;
The Gates of the Endless Night.
For that is the dwelling
Of Rua-kumea,
Of Rua-toia,
Of the grim goddess Miru,
The ever-greedy one.
’Tis she who hurleth thee
To the deep shadows of her gloomy house.”)
And, again, the tribal bards, lamenting over their dead, chant this centuries-old poem:
“Now like an angry gale,
The cold death-wind pierceth me through.
O chiefs of old,
Ye have vanished from us like the moa-bird,
That ne’er is seen of man.
O lordly totara-tree!
Thou’rt fallen to the earth,
And naught but worthless shrubs remain.
I hear the waves’ loud tangi
On the strand of Spirit Land,
Where souls, borne from this world of light,
Cast one last look behind.
The rolling seas surge in at Taumaha
Singing their wave-song for the dead
Who have forever vanished from our eyes.”
XX
NGAWAI.
Dreamily is Ngawai staring into the embers, whilst the pale new morning is crawling through the spaces between the fern-stems which form the walls of the mountain-whare (hut).
Cold and pale at first appear the long stripes painted over the floor, till they change slowly into warmer and more glowing colours, lighting up the calabashes, the nets, the paddles, and the mats, which hang on the walls smoke-blackened under the raupo roof. The stripes of daylight are able, too, to light up Ngawai’s eyes, which stare into the nearly burnt-out embers. More fiery glow the stripes, and suddenly they flood the whare with wonderful golden light: it is pure gold, through which, like music, the blue smoke ascends to the roof. Now the Sunshine pours in at the door, and with it the wonderful picture of the mountain-lake, reflecting the mountain giants, to the astonished eye. And in all the beautiful world life commences again with laughter and happiness—the laughter and happiness of the parting day.
Slowly is the sun wandering his way in the skies; up to the height of midday he wanders; the shades grow longer, and Rangi-o-mohio, a very old woman, the daughter of the famous Rangatira Te Heu-heu, is still relating:
“Listen: A great procession is ascending with much noise and shouting and frolic the barren wilderness around the stone-body of Tongariro—a great procession of Tohungas, warriors, women, and children.
Ah, Iwikau the Rangatira is leader, and they carry the bones of Te Heu-heu, my father.—Ah, Te Heu-heu, he was my father! Ah, with his bones we wander and crawl and climb over the lonely wilderness. Ah, he was the Rangatira over the lands—but, my son, look upon the greatest Rangatira of all the lands: look upon the Tongariro-tapu!”
Ngawai listens to the narrative of the old Rangi-o-mohio whilst her eyes are gazing upon the sacred Tongariro. The moon has risen over the lake, and a fine silvery gleam is glittering upon the snow of the mountain, which is sending its beautiful column of silver high up into the skies. Then once more Ngawai looks sorrowfully back, and goes on her way to her people in the distant pa.
