The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1932, Sheet 125

Transcription machine transcription, uncorrected

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

ensnares the hearts of the people in the meshes of
perpetual bondage and trouble.

Unlike the North American Indian and other
native races the Maoris did not appear to have any
adequate conception of a Good Spirit, the only
supernatural person whom they revered being Mave,
the author and originator of their country. The
form of Mawe was that of a man, except the eyes,
one of which was an eel and the other a piece of
the green tale found in Te-Wai-ponamu, or the
Southward Islands.

The Maoris had very clear ideas, however, of
the evil spirit called Wiro, from whose malevolent
person all sin and trouble came. They said, just
as we do, that he was the father of lies, that he
urged men and women to commit all crimes, that
he was the embodiment of cruelty, laughing at the
sight of weeping men, rejoicing when they were
bowed in trouble, and that he who had taught the
Maoris to eat one another himself fed on the souls
of men. He was omnipresent and awfully haunted
them everywhere, crouching on their pillows when
they went to sleep, perching on the stern of their
canoes when they went to fish, and coming the
unasked, and certainly the most unwelcome, guest
into their circles of sacred and social life. ‘Thus
it will be seen. that the Maoris were, when the mis-
sionaries first came to their shores, a demon-ridden
people.

All this, of course, made the priest a necessity,
and among the Maoris this personage assumed the
usual importance and prerogatives. The office was
hereditary, and its members were generally of a
chieftain’s status. But the people were not so strict
in this respect as some native races, and it often
fell to the lot of the youngest son of a chief to
become the priest; and he might soon degenerate
into a mere sorcerer, viewed with slight respect.
Having the power to consult the oracles of the gods,
the priests gained or lost their reputation according
to the success of their prophecies and therefore with
much worldly wisdom took every possible precaution
and waited as long as possible that they might be
correct. They gave their advice upon the mys-
terious appearance of common objects, such as a
flight of birds in some particular direction, the
quantity or shape of the earth adhering to a fern
root; and in order to intensify the effect of their
prophecy, they would fall into trances, at the same
time terrifying the bystander with unearthly words
and chants.

One special instrument of cunning they used

with great success is the power of imitating voices ;
they were accomplished ventriloquists and bewitched
their votaries with these arts. In almost every case
the lizard was the embodiment of evil and suffering ;
if the evil eye was cast upon a man, he grew de-
jected and was told that a baleful spirit in the form
of a lizard was slowly killing him. The method
of consulting an oracle was as follows: A spot of
ground was selected which was sheltered from the
wind and the fern; weeds and other vegetation
were cleared therefrom for the space of about six
feet. If the question to be decided was the issue
of a war, the wizard took a number of sticks of
equal size, and while the air was perfectly calm,
he made these stand on end in two rows to repre-
sent the respective armies; then he named them.
“This is the N’gai-te-waki, that the N’ga-ti-
rahairi; this is the Uri-Rapana and this the Nga-
te-tau-tahi.” He retired to a distance and watched
the effect of the rising wind on the sticks. Those
which fell back were defeated; if sideways, only
partially destroyed; if forwards, theirs was the
victory. It will be readily seen, however, that this
arrangement lent itself to all sorts of trickery, and
the manipulator generally managed to give an oracle
favorable to the tribe asking his advice. The sticks
were in every case carried with the tribe to battle
and believed to be a sacred pledge of victory.
Such were some of the dark and heathenish
practises of the Maoris in their unenlightened state.

The Spirit of Fear.

The following extract is taken from Dr. War-
neck’s missionary classic The Living Forces of the
Gospel. Dr. Warneck is now the head of the
Rhenish Missionary Society; but for many years
he served among Battaks and therefore knows
whereof he speaks from experience. He writes: —

“Another thing we must take note of in order
to understand the full depth of heathendom’s
estrangement from God is its subjection to the
dominion of devilish powers. The animistic heathen
are not only in error, they are slaves. They are
bound by three fetters — fear, demon-worship, and
fate. Fear, in various forms, tyrannizes the Animist
in every situation of life. The vision of the world
in which his religiousness is rooted is extremely
dark. Even his own soul is a hostile power against
which he must ever be on his guard. It is fond of
leaving him; it allows itself to be enticed away