There are also peculiar circumstances connected with the New Zealanders which render such a record peculiarly desirable in their case. They were probably the most remote of the Polynesian race, from the point from which that people came in their emigration to the islands of the Pacific. They therefore were most likely sprung from those who first separated from the parent stock, whose descendants in successive generations would probably have always kept continually in front in the line of successively advancing emigrations.

Again, in so far as our knowledge goes, it appears probable that no other people with whom we are acquainted, had been for so long a time shut off from all communication with exterior nations as the New Zealanders had been when first visited by Europeans. If these suppositions are granted, we ought to expect to find the Polynesian language, religion, legends, and customs all preserved in New Zealand in their most unadulterated form.

When the first edition of this work was published in 1855, I had no true idea of the number of New Zealand printed books and manuscripts which I had collected in pursuit of the task I had undertaken. In 1858 they were, however, all carefully arranged and catalogued, when it appeared that the collection contained 301 printed volumes, nearly all in the Māori language, and 223 manuscripts, and that the latter documents contained 10,090 pages. The tabulated form which follows, taken from the catalogue of Māori books which was published at Cape Town in 1858, shows the size of the various books and manuscripts, which are deposited in the library at that place.

It is very desirable that the portion of the Cape of Good Hope catalogue which relates to New Zealand should be republished in this country. It consists of only 76 pages, and contains a description of the contents of each printed work and of each manuscript.

Many of the manuscripts were written by natives from the dictation of the most celebrated old chiefs, such as Rangihaeata, Te Rauparaha, Pōtatau, Te Heuheu, Patuone, Te Taniwha, etc. Those that I took down from the dictation of the great chiefs, were all carefully gone over and corrected by natives who could read and write. The chiefs who supplied the various religious services, poems, legends, and histories, including the wars and events which had taken place during their own lives, were as anxious as I was, that a complete picture of the Māori race in its original state should be preserved and handed down to posterity, and they cheerfully and eagerly aided me in the work. In many cases I told them exactly what I wanted, supplied them with the requisite writing materials, and some months afterwards received a valuable manuscript which had been dictated to an educated native. Probably no such collection of materials for illustrating the history of a barbarous race has ever before been made. The labour undergone in its collection was great.

Another reason why this Cape catalogue should be republished in New Zealand (it has been long out of print) is, that it contains a minute account of the information supplied to me by each individual, which was embodied in the first edition of the Māori legends. When two or more individuals, European or native, supplied the same portion of a legend the manuscript furnished by each was catalogued, so that the aid rendered by each individual was recorded, although it was not made use of, except as a confirmation of that which had been previously supplied.

I find from the Cape of Good Hope catalogue of manuscripts, that the following European gentlemen gave me the undermentioned papers connected with Māori poetry and legends.

The foregoing list of contributions to my task, afforded by European friends, will show how very large my obligations were to the Māori chiefs for the assistance which they afforded me. This is perhaps as it should be. The legends, poems, and histories are Māori—as they recognised them, and supplied them. One instance that occurs to my recollection is this. Attracted by the beauty of the spot, I determined to pass a morning on the island of Mokoia.2 I proceeded there in a canoe with some friends and two or three natives. Wandering about, I grew weary, and was tempted at last to sit down at the edge of a beautiful warm spring, close to the margin of Lake Rotorua, in which lake the island of Mokoia stands. After a time a native chief came up to me, and knowing my fondness for legends, he told me the beautiful legend of his ancestress Hinemoa, who had landed on the spot where we sat. I was charmed with the tale, made him repeat it, and at once wrote it down in my notebook. I crossed over again to Te Ngae, the mission station on the mainland, in the afternoon, and repeated the legend to my old friend, Mr. Chapman, the missionary. He said, “It is strange, I have lived here for a good many years, and they never told me this.” I could not help smiling, and told him they could never have imagined that a missionary would have cared about such a thing. But he went out at once to ask some of his native converts about the matter, and returned quite pleased to think that he lived near so interesting a spot.

The discovery of this legend, on December 26, 1849, created a strong sensation of pleasure in many minds in New Zealand. It was not then known, and at first could hardly be believed, that tales, containing so much of romance and poetic beauty, existed in New Zealand. I shall never forget the pleasure with which my valued friend Domett first heard it, and long will live the magnificent poem, “Ranolf and Amohia,” into which his genius has expanded the legend, so fortuitously acquired.

The foregoing list of Māori manuscripts taken from the Cape of Good Hope catalogue will show how largely the Cape Library is endowed with New Zealand native literature of extraordinary value. Since the establishment of that Library I have made another collection of New Zealand manuscript literature for the Auckland Public Library. This latter is as yet unarranged, and no catalogue of it has been made. It is, however, extensive and valuable. But in the Auckland Library will also be found a considerable collection of manuscript South African literature, which would be of great value to the Cape Library. I must thus seem to have made an injudicious arrangement regarding the place of deposit of great historical treasures.

A man employed in the service of a great and extensive Empire can, however, never perfectly adjust or arrange his entire life. He can neither at any given moment estimate the time he may live, nor can he know in what part of the world he may in a few months find himself. Thus ignorant of his own fate, he is equally I ignorant of that of each of his associates. An arrangement he may deem wise and prudent may turn out, if he lives to a considerable age, not to have been the wisest he could have made, if it was in his power to have foretold the future. When I made arrangements for giving a Library to the Cape of Good Hope, I believed, if I lived so long, that I was likely to have resided at the Cape for a few years. My friend Dr. Bleek, one of the greatest of living philologists, was then resident at Cape Town. He was a good Māori scholar. We were in the habit of working together, and I hoped that we should have worked out and published a great part of the New Zealand literature which was deposited at the Cape. I soon had to leave the Cape, have never returned there, and my friend Dr. Bleek, many years younger than myself, is dead. Perhaps still advantages may be derived from the arrangement which was made. The learned of the Cape of Good Hope and of New Zealand must, in time, be driven into frequent and intimate correspondence regarding the sources of information which the two countries mutually possess of their early history, and of the native populations which inhabited each of two such important portions of the world. From such correspondence and literary intimacy great mutual advantages may arise to each of these two places. Ultimately, I have no doubt also, that frequent exchanges of literary treasures will take place between them, and that they will thus, each of them by relinquishing something, gradually acquire those manuscripts which, in their respective estimations, they think it most desirable that each country should possess. If in any respect either of them may feel disappointed, they will, I know, readily pardon a man whose sole desire was to benefit each of them, according to the best of his ability and knowledge at the moment he formed his decision.

I am indebted to my friend, Dr. Edward Shortland, an eminent Māori scholar, for having corrected for the press the native part of this volume, with the exception of about the first fifty or sixty pages. The students of the Māori language, in studying that portion of this work, will find their labour greatly lightened from the ability and care with which this has been done.

G. Grey.

Kawau, Oct. 6th, 1885.

Polynesian Mythology

The Children of Heaven and Earth

Ko Ngā Tama A Rangi

Tradition Relating to the Origin of the Human Race

Men had but one pair of primitive ancestors; they sprang from the vast heaven that exists above us, and from earth which lies beneath us. According to the traditions of our race, Rangi and Papa, or Heaven and Earth, were the source from which, in the beginning, all things originated. Darkness then rested upon the heaven and upon the earth, and they still both clave together, for they had not yet been rent apart; and the children they had begotten were ever thinking amongst themselves what might be the difference between darkness and light; they knew that beings had multiplied and increased, and yet light had never broken upon them, but it ever continued dark. Hence these sayings are found in our ancient religious services: “There was darkness from the first division of time, unto the tenth, to the hundredth, to the thousandth,” that is, for a vast space of time; and these divisions of times were considered as beings, and were each termed a Po; and on their account there was yet no world with its bright light, but darkness only for the beings which existed.

At last the beings who had been begotten by Heaven and Earth, worn out by the continued darkness, consulted amongst themselves, saying, “Let us now determine what we should do with Rangi and Papa, whether it would be better to slay them or to rend them apart.”

Then spoke Tūmatauenga, the fiercest of the children of Heaven and Earth, “It is well, let us slay them.”

Then spake Tānemahuta, the father of forests and of all things that inhabit them, or that are constructed of trees, “Nay, not so. It is better to rend them apart, and to let the heaven stand far above us, and the earth lie beneath our feet. Let the sky become as a stranger to us, but the earth remain close to us as a nursing mother.”

The brothers all consented to this proposal, with the exception of Tāwhirimātea, the father of winds and storms, and he, fearing that his kingdom was about to be overthrown, grieved greatly at the thought of his parents being torn apart. Five of the brothers willingly consented to the separation of their parents, but one of them would not consent to it.

Hence, also, these sayings of old are found in our prayers, “Darkness, darkness, light, light, the seeking, the searching, in chaos, in chaos;” these signified the way in which the offspring of heaven and earth sought for some mode of dealing with their parents, so that human beings might increase and live.

So, also, these sayings of old time, “The multitude, the length,” signified the multitude of the thoughts of the children of Heaven and Earth, and the length of time they considered whether they should slay their parents, that human beings might be called into existence; for it was in this manner that they talked and consulted amongst themselves.

But at length their plans having been agreed on, lo, Rongomātāne, the god and father of the cultivated food of man, rises up, that he may rend apart the heavens and the earth; he struggles, but he rends them not apart. Lo, next, Tangaroa, the god and father of fish and reptiles, rises up, that he may rend apart the heavens and the earth; he also struggles, but he rends them not apart. Lo, next, Haumia-tikitiki, the god and father of the food of man which springs without cultivation, rises up and struggles, but ineffectually. Lo, then, Tūmatauenga, the god and father of fierce human beings, rises up and struggles, but he, too, fails in his efforts. Then, at last, slowly up rises Tānemahuta, the god and father of forests, of birds, and of insects, and he struggles with his parents; in vain he strives to rend them apart with his hands and arms. Lo, he pauses; his head is now firmly planted on his mother the earth, his feet he raises up and rests against his father the skies, he strains his back and limbs with mighty effort. Now are rent apart Rangi and Papa, and with cries and groans of woe they shriek aloud, “Wherefore slay you thus your parents? Why commit you so dreadful a crime as to slay us, as to rend your parents apart?” But Tānemahuta pauses not, he regards not their shrieks and cries; far, far beneath him he presses down the earth; far, far above him he thrust up the sky.

Hence these sayings of olden time, “It was the fierce thrusting of Tāne which tore the heaven from the earth, so that they were rent apart, and darkness was made manifest, and so was the light.”

No sooner was heaven rent from earth than the multitude of human beings were discovered whom they had begotten, and who had hitherto lain concealed between the bodies of Rangi and Papa.

Then, also, there arose in the breast of Tāwhirimātea, the god and father of winds and storms, a fierce desire to wage war with his brothers, because they had rent apart their common parents. He from the first had refused to consent to his mother being torn from her lord and children; it was his brothers alone that wished for this separation, and desired that Papatūānuku, or the Earth alone, should be left as a parent to them.

The god of hurricanes and storms dreads also that the world should become too fair and beautiful, so he rises, follows his father to the realms above, and hurries to the sheltered hollows in the boundless skies; there he hides and clings, and nestling in this place of rest he consults long with his parent, and as the vast Heaven listens to the suggestions of Tāwhirimātea, thoughts and plans are formed in his breast, and Tāwhirimātea also understands what he should do. Then by himself and the vast Heaven were begotten his numerous brood, and they rapidly increased and grew. Tāwhirimātea despatches one of them to the westward, and one to the southward, and one to the eastward, and one to the northward; and he gives corresponding names to himself and to his progeny the mighty winds.

He next sends forth fierce squalls, whirlwinds, dense clouds, massy clouds, dark clouds, gloomy thick clouds, fiery clouds, clouds which precede hurricanes, clouds of fiery black, clouds reflecting glowing red light, clouds wildly drifting from all quarters and wildly bursting, clouds of thunder storms, and clouds hurriedly flying. In the midst of these Tāwhirimātea himself sweeps wildly on. Alas! alas! then rages the fierce hurricane; and whilst Tānemahuta and his gigantic forests still stand, unconscious and unsuspecting, the blast of the breath of the mouth of Tāwhirimātea smites them, the gigantic trees are snapped off right in the middle; alas! alas! they are rent to atoms, dashed to the earth, with boughs and branches torn and scattered, and lying on the earth, trees and branches all alike left for the insect, for the grub, and for loathsome rottenness.

From the forests and their inhabitants Tāwhirimātea next swoops down upon the seas, and lashes in his wrath the ocean. Ah! ah! waves steep as cliffs arise, whose summits are so lofty that to look from them would make the beholder giddy; these soon eddy in whirlpools, and Tangaroa, the god of the ocean, and father of all that dwell therein, flies affrighted through his seas; but before he fled, his children consulted together how they might secure their safety, for Tangaroa had begotten Punga, and he had begotten two children, Ikatere, the father of fish, and Tūtewehiwehi, or Tūtewanawana, the father of reptiles.

When Tangaroa fled for safety to the ocean, then Tūtewehiwehi and Ikatere, and their children, disputed together as to what they should do to escape from the storms, and Tūtewehiwehi and his party cried aloud, “Let us fly inland;” but Ikatere and his party cried aloud, “Let us fly to the sea.” Some would not obey one order, some would not obey the other, and they escaped in two parties: the party of Tūtewehiwehi, or the reptiles, hid themselves ashore; the party of Puuga rushed to the sea. This is what, in our ancient religious services, is called the separation of Tāwhirimātea. Hence these traditions have been handed down:—“Ikatere, the father of things which inhabit the water, cried aloud to Tūtewehiwehi, ‘Ho, ho, let us all escape to the sea.’

“But Tūtewehiwehi shouted in answer, ‘Nay, nay, let us rather fly inland.’

“Then Ikatere warned him, saying, ‘Fly inland, then; and the fate of you and your race will be, that when they catch you, before you are cooked, they will singe off your scales over a lighted wisp of dry fern.’

“But Tūtewehiwehi answered him, saying, ‘Seek safety, then, in the sea; and the future fate of your race will be, that when they serve out little baskets of cooked vegetable food to each person, you will be laid upon the top of the food to give a relish to it.’