In the afternoon I went home musing on what I had heard and seen. "Surely," thought I, "if one half of the world does not know how the other half live, neither do they know how they die."
Some days after this a deputation arrived to deliver up my old friend's mere. It was a weapon of great mana, and was delivered with some little ceremony. I perceive now I have written this word mana several times, and think I may as well explain what it means. I think this the more necessary as the word has been bandied about a good deal of late years, and meanings often attached to it by Europeans which are incorrect, but which the natives sometimes accept because it suits their purpose. This same word mana has several different meanings, and the difference between these diverse meanings is sometimes very great, and sometimes only a mere shade of meaning, though one very necessary to observe; and it is, therefore, quite impossible to find any one single word in English, or in any other language that I have any acquaintance with, which will give the meaning of mana. And, moreover, though I myself do know all the meanings and different shades of meaning properly belonging to the word, I find a great difficulty in explaining them; but as I have begun, the thing must be done. It will also be a tough word disposed of to my hand, when I come to write my Maori dictionary, in a hundred volumes, which, if I begin soon, I hope to have finished before the Maori is a dead language.
Now then for mana. Virtus, prestige, authority, good fortune, influence, sanctity, luck, are all words which, under certain conditions, give something near the meaning of mana, though not one of them give it exactly; but before I am done, the reader shall have a reasonable notion (for a pakeha) of what it is.
Mana sometimes means a more than natural virtue or power attaching to some person or thing, different from and independent of the ordinary natural conditions of either, and capable of either increase or diminution, both from known and unknown causes. The mana of a priest or tohunga is proved by the truth of his predictions, as well as the success of his incantations, which same incantations, performed by another person, of inferior mana, would have no effect. Consequently, this description of mana is a virtue, or more than natural or ordinary condition attaching to the priest himself, and which he may become possessed of and also lose without any volition of his own. When
"Apollo from his shrine,
No longer could divine,
The hollow steep of Delphos sadly leaving,"—
Then the oracle had lost its mana.
Then there is the doctor's mana. The Maori doctors in the old times did not deal much in "simples," but they administered large doses of mana. Now when most of a doctor's patients recovered, his mana was supposed to be in full feather; but if, as will happen sometimes to the best practitioners, a number of patients should slip through his fingers seriatim, then his mana was suspected to be getting weak, and he would not be liable to be "knocked up" as frequently as formerly.
Mana in another sense is the accompaniment of power, but not the power itself; nor is it even in this sense exactly "authority," according to the strict meaning of that word, though it comes very near it. This is the chief's mana. Let him lose the power, and the mana is gone; but mind you do not translate mana as power; that won't do: they are two different things entirely. Of this nature also is the mana of a tribe; but this is not considered to be the supernatural kind of mana.
Then comes the mana of a warrior. Uninterrupted success in war proves it. It has a slight touch of the supernatural, but not much. Good fortune comes near the meaning, but is just a little too weak. The warrior's mana is just a little something more than bare good fortune; a severe defeat would shake it terribly; two or three in succession would show that it was gone: but before leaving him, some supernaturally ominous occurrence might be expected to take place, such as are said to have happened before the deaths of Julius Cæsar, Marcus Antonius, or Brutus. Let not any one smile at my, even in the most distant way, comparing the old Maori warriors with these illustrious Romans, for if they do, I shall answer that some of the old Maori Toa, were thought as much of in their world, as any Greek or Roman of old was in his; and, moreover, that it is my private opinion, that if the best of them could only have met my friend "Lizard Skin," in his best days, and would take off his armour and fight fair, that the aforesaid "Lizard Skin" would have tickled him to his heart's content with the point of his spear.
A fortress often assailed but never taken has a mana, and one of a high description too. The name of the fortress becomes a pepeha, a war boast or motto, and a war cry of encouragement or defiance, like the slogan of the ancient Highlanders in Scotland.