Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Histories were carried by the voice, in stories, songs and chants. Great stress was placed
on accurate learning - after all, in an oral culture where people are the libraries, the past is
always a generation or two away from oblivion.
Maori lived in
kainga,
small villages, which often had associated gardens. Housing was
quite cosy by modern standards - often it was hard to stand upright while inside. From
time to time people would leave their home base and go to harvest seasonal foods. When
peaceful life was interrupted by conflict, the people would withdraw to
pa,
fortified dwell-
ing places.
And then Europeans began to arrive.
HOW THE WORLD BEGAN
In the Maori story of creation, first there was the void, then the night, then Rangi-nui (sky father) and Papa-tu-a-
nuku (earth mother) came into being, embracing with their children nurtured between them. But nurturing be-
came something else. Their children were stifled in the darkness of their embrace. Unable to stretch out to their
full dimensions and struggling to see clearly in the darkness, their children tried to separate them. Tawhiri-matea,
the god of winds, raged against them; Tu-mata-uenga, the god of war, assaulted them. Each god child in turn tried
to separate them, but still Rangi and Papa pressed against each other. And then Tane-mahuta, god of the great
forests and of humanity, placed his feet against his father and his back against his mother and slowly, inexorably,
began to move them apart. Then came the world of light, of demigods and humanity.
In this world of light Maui, the demigod ancestor, was cast out to sea at birth and was found floating in his
mother's topknot. He was a shape-shifter, becoming a pigeon or a dog or an eel if it suited his purposes. He stole
fire from the gods. Using his grandmother's jawbone, he bashed the sun so that it could only limp slowly across
the sky, so that people would have enough time during the day to get things done (if only he would do it again!).
Using the South Island as a canoe, he used the jawbone as a hook to fish up Te Ika a Maui (the fish of Maui) - the
North Island. And, finally, he met his end trying to defeat death itself. The goddess of death, Hine Nui Te Po, had
obsidian teeth in her vagina (obsidian is a volcanic glass that takes a razor edge when chipped). Maui attempted
to reverse birth (and hence defeat death) by crawling into her birth canal to reach her heart as she slept. A small
bird - a fantail - laughed at the absurd sight. Hine Nui Te Po awoke, and crushed Maui between her thighs. Death
one, humanity nil.
