The Maori people - those Polynesians who moved to the cooler islands of New Zealand - possessed a mythology that matched their own great qualities. They had a myth of the Creation that rivals Genesis in beauty, a pantheon of gods and heroes who can be mentioned in the same breath as those of the Greeks, and a store of splendid tribal histories, half factual, half fabulous, ...
These are the opening lines of the Preface to a recently published selection of Maori myths and legends in translation: they indicate how strongly many modern New Zealanders are attracted to the various forms of Maori literature. But this is no new phenomen. For the receptive Pakeha mind has been fascinated by Maori mythology since the very beginnings of European settlement in New Zealand. Indeed, if anything, the magnetic appeal of Maori myth and legend was probably most evident in the earliest years of intercultural contact.
Thomas Kendall was one of the first missionaries to work among the Maori people. Unlike most of his fellow-evangelists, Kendall determined to study and so understand the religion and customs of his adopted flock. Unfortunately, this �tragic, Faustian figure� was soon out of his depth. Kendall wrote,
I am now, after a long, anxious, and painful study, arriving at the very foundation and groundwork of the cannibalism and superstitions of these islanders. All their notions are metaphysical, and I have been so poisoned withh the apparent sublimity of their ideas that I have been almost completely turned from a Christian to a heathen.
Another early missionary, Richard Taylor, also studied Maori beliefs in depth. But Taylor, though he felt impelled by his inter-course with the Maori to write a long and influential treatise on his interpretation of Maoritanga, did manage to retain a degree of scholarly objectivity towards his subject. Yet even so, Taylor acknowledges in his treatise that,
The Maori mythology is extremely interesting, and quite different from what we should expect from a people sunk in barbarism. ... Their ideas in some respects are not so puerile, as those even of the more civilized heathens of old, and without the light of inspiration, could not be expected to be more advanced.
Nor were secular scholars immune to "Maori fever." Sir George Grey wrote of the Maori that � their traditions are puerile� and their �religious faith ... is absurd�. Yet during the eight years that he was Governor of the nascent colony of New Zealand in a period of constant interracial stress, Grey devoted a great deal of what little spare time he had to the collection and publication of the myths and legends, and �the ancient traditional poems, religious chants, and songs, of the Maori race�-- Introduction. Four poets are considered: Alfred Domett (1811-1887), Arthur Henry Adams (1872-1936), Jessie Mackay (1864-1938), Blanche E. Baughan (1870-1958).
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/217673 |
| Date | January 1972 |
| Creators | Barnhill, Helen M, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Otago. Department of English |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | http://policy01.otago.ac.nz/policies/FMPro?-db=policies.fm&-format=viewpolicy.html&-lay=viewpolicy&-sortfield=Title&Type=Academic&-recid=33025&-find), Copyright Helen M Barnhill |
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