Prayers, such as have been mentioned, are handed down by the tohungas or priests from father to son, and the youths undergo a long course of instruction before they can take rank among the priests. Dr. Dieffenbach was once fortunate enough to witness a portion of this instruction. “I was present at one of the lessons. An old priest was sitting under a tree, and at his feet was a boy, his relative, who listened attentively to the repetition of certain words, which seemed to have no meaning, but which it must have required a good memory to retain in their due order. At the old tohunga’s side was part of a man’s skull filled with water. Into this from time to time he dipped a green branch, which he moved over the boy’s head. At my approach the old man smiled, as if to say. ‘See how clever I am,’ and continued his abracadabra.
“I have been assured by the missionaries that many of these prayers have no meaning; but this I am greatly inclined to doubt. The words of the prayers are perhaps the remains of a language now forgotten; or, what is more probable, we find here what has existed among most of the nations of antiquity, even the most civilized, viz: that religious mysteries were confined to a certain class of men, who kept them concealed from the profanum vulgus, or communicated only such portions of them as they thought fit.
“They often had a sacred symbolic language, the knowledge of which was confined to the priesthood, as, for instance, the Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Sanscrit; or, if we look nearer home, we find the religion of Thor, Odin, and Freya enveloped in a poetical mythos, which has for its foundation deep and grand philosophical conceptions of morals and ethics.”
It is a rather curious fact that, contrary to the usual custom of heathen priests, the tohungas did not oppose the Christian missionaries, but were among the first to receive the new religion. Some of them seem to have received it too hastily and without sufficient knowledge of its principles, as we see from the miserable travesty of Christianity which has sprung up of late years among the Maories, and which is in New Zealand what the system of Taeping is in China.
The priests are, as a rule, the most expert artists and woodcarvers in the country; so that the word “tohunga” is often applied by the natives to a man who is skilful in any art, no matter whether he be a priest or not.
The [illustration No. 1], on the 860th page, is a portrait of a very celebrated tohunga, taken by Mr. Angas in 1844. His name was Te Ohu. The portrait was obtained during a great meeting of chiefs at Aluahu. Te Ohu distinguished himself greatly on this occasion, running about after the fashion of Maori orators, shaking his long and grizzled locks from side to side, stamping furiously on the ground, and uttering his speech in a singularly deep and sonorous voice.
In the background of the sketch may be seen two remarkable articles. The one, which is the half of a canoe, stuck upright in the ground, marks the grave of a deceased chief; and the other is a pole, on which are hung a calabash of water and a basket of food, with which the spirit of the dead can refresh himself when he returns to visit the scene of his lifetime. Sometimes a dish of cooked pigeons is added; and in one case a model of a canoe, with its sail and paddles, was placed on the tomb, as a conveyance for the soul of the departed when he wished to cross the waters which lead to the eternal abodes of the spirit.
Concerning the state of the spirit after the death of the body the Maories seem to have very vague ideas. The sum of their notions on this subject is as follows:—They believe that the spirit of man is immortal, and that when it leaves the body it goes to the Reinga, or place of departed spirits. Shooting and falling stars are thought to be the souls of men going to this place. The entrance to the Reinga is down the face of a rocky cliff at Cape Maria Van Diemen. Lest the spirit should hurt itself by falling down this precipice, there is a very old tree which grows there, on which the spirits break their fall. One particular branch was pointed out as being the portion of the tree on which the spirits alighted.
One of the missionaries cut off this branch, and in consequence the natives do not regard it with quite so much awe as they did in former days. Still Dr. Dieffenbach remarks that, when he visited the islands, they held the spot in great veneration, and not even the Christian natives would go near it.
All spirits do not enter the Reinga in the same manner, those of chiefs ascending first the upper heavens, where they leave the left eye, which becomes a new star. For this reason, if a chief is killed in war, his left eye is eaten by the chief of the victorious party, who thinks that he has thus incorporated into his own being the courage, skill, and wisdom of the dead man.