With the rising Sun came the old friend, and placed fresh wood on the camp-fire, a work of love; for he is a Rangatira-Tohunga (chief priest) of great mana in his tribe, and his tapu forbids menial labour. With Sorrow in his face, he sat down, quietly laying a parting present at our feet.
On the water of the river sways the reflected canoe loaded for the journey, and the sun plays among the leaves of the trees, the children of the God Tane-Mahuta.
“Take with you the wisdom of the old people, my wanderer, the wisdom which will be soon forgotten among my children, who follow now the ways of the pakeha (the new friends) who came to us bringing the truth of their God; and we are now all children of the great Queen over the seas, who promised to be our mother. Go in peace, my friend!”
Deeply thinking, he looked in the glowing embers. Each followed his own thoughts.
Far away at Hawaiki was the world created, and there is the home of the Maoris. It is the birthplace of their race; it was the dwelling-place of their ancestors, who are gods now, and live in the heavens; it is their Spirit Land.
Their ancestors built the whare-kura, the sacred Temple, at Hawaiki, and it stood facing the East, at the place of Mua. In the whare-kura assembled the highest chiefs and the Tohungas of all the tribes to communicate with the spirits of the gods, and to repeat and rehearse the names and heroic deeds of their ancestors, that they might take deep root in the hearts of the living, and that they might never forget their descent from the most ancient gods, who dwelled in the Darkness, the Nothing, and the Beginning of All Things! They assembled to acquire and repeat the sacred wisdom of the incantations, the ceremonies, and the traditions, from Te-Kore, the Nothing, to Te-Po, the Lower World, to Te-Ao, the Light, to Rangi-nui, the Great Heaven, and to Papa-nui, the Great Earth; the incantations and Karakias to the Gods of War and of Witchcraft, and the food; and all those to the multitude of spirits who govern, help, or hinder, the living.
From Hawaiki the heroes and their tribes wandered over the seas, and the Tohungas took with them the wisdom of the whare-kura, guarding it sacredly, and repeating it only to the ears of their descendants or to those of high rank and ambition; and nothing of the sacred knowledge was lost from the days of Te-Kore to the present time; but now it is dying with the last Tohungas.
Little only is known of the sacred wisdom of the Maoris. The dread of the old gods is still living in the hearts of the Maoris, but the last hour has come for them as they now bend their tattoed heads over the fire and murmur regretfully of the great Past.
Thoughtfully looked the old friend at me, and I spoke: