The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1932, Page 121

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

⤓ Download .txt · copy text

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

121

Then, speaking of the establishment of an endow-
ment fund in a case like that mentioned, is it wise
to do so? The endowment of a mission in the
locality where the congregation formerly had its
church home would seem much wiser. F.J.L.

The Superstitions and Worship of the
Old Heathen Maoris.

Long have we roamed in want and pain,
Long have we sought our rest in vain;
*Wildered in doubt, in darkness lost,
Long have our souls been tempest-tost,
Low at Thy feet our sins we lay:

Turn not, O Lord, Thy guests away.

When the missionaries first went to New Zea-
land, they struck upon the unusual prevalence of
tapu, the making and holding of things sacred,
which indeed underlies all the religious ideas among
the Maoris. This law, which also exists among the
islands of Polynesia, was the code of life to these
New Zealanders. Its origin is enveloped in mys-
tery; the Maori word tapu is sacred; tabut is a
Malay word to express “the Ark of the Covenant
of God,” tabooh is a Hindu word for a bier, or
coffin; and in the ancient Sanskrit ta means to
mark and pu to purify. The use of tapu was not
always in a religious sense; it was often political
and might be practised for either saving a life or
destroying it. Certain persons or things were in-
variably held sacred by it—the bodies of chiefs,
the first sweet potatoes, the men engaged in plant-
ing them, sick persons, fishing-nets, sticks upon
which the priests kept their ancestral records; and
for temporary purposes the same law applied to
trees likely to make good canoes, to places where
birds lay their eggs, and generally to everything
which related to the priests. The act of rendering
a thing or place tapu was very simple: the priest
had simply to touch or point to a thing or, in some
cases, to tie a piece of human hair or a bit of an
old mat to the object.

Chiefs and priests were by virtue of their office _

tapu and therefore were not allowed to work, but
were fed by their slaves. If, however, a man who
was tapu had no slave to perform these offices, he
was compelled to go upon his hands and knees and
eat the food from the ground like a dog. Perhaps
in nothing was the sacredness of this practise shown
more than in dealing with the dead. ‘The place of
departure is so sacred that everything on the spot
is destroyed by fire; this requirement, however, the

islanders met by taking their dying persons to the
side of a stream or covering them with a slight
shelter, the destruction of which would not inter-
fere with the value of their property. To break
the tapu was punishable with death, and most of
the wars between the tribes arose from some diffi-
culties of that character.

To remove the spell, the tapued persons had to
undergo an elaborate ceremony. A consecrated stick
of wood was passed over the right shoulder, round
the body, and back to the left shoulder, then broken
in two or flung into the sea. After that the priest

An Old Maori, New Zealand.

would stand over these persons, waving branches
of the korokia-tree, and chant some such dirge as
this : —

Oh, fearful and dreaded tapu, get you hence!

Now thou art being put down and out of the way.

Go to the streams and wade through them;

These are the waters which the sun has to cross so

that he may be free.

Then the priests said to the people, “The tapu is
here, the tapu is removed to a distant place, that
tapu which held thee. Take away the dread, take
away the fear. The tapu is being borne away, and
the tapued person is free.” ;

It may be said that this system is an unseen
network of fear and misery to the native mind and