Human sacrifice on the death of a leader

Here we have what was perhaps the most common cause of human sacrifice among the Maori, although this form was not considered a solemn ceremony, such as the sacrifice of a person for a new house, fort or canoe. Whether the object was to provide companions and attendants for the dead in the spirit world, or simply to add luster to funeral functions, to honor the deceased, this killing was apparently not considered a performance solemn religious.

Mortuary sacrifice was a recognized practice among the Maori, but in relation to important people only. The victim was killed as a koangaumu, a term for which we lack a satisfactory definition, and was called ika koangaumu. My Tuhoe notes state that such a sacrifice was only an enlargement of the deceased chief and that in some cases the victim was a member of the same tribe, although of a different clan. The body in this case was not eaten and, apparently, no rites were performed on it.

In His Life and Times of Patuone CO Davis writes: "It was the custom of the Maoris, on the occasion of the death of a great chief, to kill a slave, cook the body in a tapu oven and to place it on a stage near the sculpted tomb of the deceased; but when a lesser man died, only kumara and taro (plant foodstuffs) were cooked. » Here the reader must be made to understand that few native functions have been universally performed in the same manner; differences obtained in different districts.

Cruise tells us that “When a member of the chief's family dies, a certain number of slaves, proportionate to the person's rank, are sacrificed to appease the spirit of the deceased. However, we have no reliable evidence that this was the object of the sacrifice. Cruise only stayed in New Zealand for ten months and could not have acquired knowledge of the native language. Interestingly, these people often claim to tell us the origin and meaning of Māori customs, and such statements have been largely conjecture. 

This author gives us a brief account of an event in Sydney, when a young chef Maori died there. In Sydney at the same time were several other Māori, including some commoners. The young chief's friends wanted to kill him "to appease his deceased spirit", and Reverend Marsden had some difficulty in suspending the proceedings.

Thomson, in his history of New Zealand, states that "when the chiefs died, slaves were killed to render them menial service in the other world." Brown, in New Zealand and its aborigines, writes: "It was a very common practice at one time to sacrifice a number of slaves on the death of a chief, that he might be duly provided with a respectable retinue of servants in the world of After. " In the New Zealand Journal of 1845 the following appeared: "In October 1843, on the death of Kupanga, wife of a native chief on the island of Waiheke, near Auckland, a slave girl was shot for accompanying her mistress to the other world. » 

In an account of a native fight at Taranaki, in which thirteen chiefs were killed, Polack wrote: "At the burial of each chief, ten slaves were murdered to serve the wairua or spirit of the warrior in the other world. » He also describes the recumbent figure of a dead leader: “Around the body lay his weapons of defense, which must have been buried with him. Next to it lay the body of an interesting young girl, wife of the chief, who had hanged herself the previous day…. Some slaves, both men and women, had been put to death to assist their superiors in the Reinga (spirit world); they were immediately afterwards buried. 

Again, he says: “A chief named Parenui died while we were traveling on the west coast of the North Island, on which three of his wives sacrificed themselves. 

To help this family on their eternal journey several slaves were murdered to help their master in his future existence. The women were lying in state next to the husband; the slaves were immediately buried, because such sacrifices cannot be devoured. CO. Davis tells us that "the self-immolation of the wives of a deceased chief was clearly a voluntary expression of their extreme affection for the dead." This self-murder of widows, being only suicide, cannot be included in human sacrifice. 

Nor am I inclined to believe that intense affection was the cause of such suicide on the part of the widows; it was simply a custom; it was considered the appropriate thing for a widow to do. The simulation of intense grief was a very popular practice among our Maoris; in some cases it can almost be described as recreation.

In Fiji this massacre of people on the death of a chief was a cherished institution, and the missionaries had much more difficulty putting an end to it than in New Zealand. Of the practice in Fiji, Williams wrote: "This custom may have a religious origin, but at present the victims are not sacrificed as offerings to the gods, but simply to propitiate and honor the names of the deceased . » These remarks would also apply to New Zealand practice. 

In Fiji, a man's friends were suffering grievously; his wife(s), sometimes also his mother, or a friend, were strangled and their bodies placed at the bottom of the grave to serve as "grass" on which to place his body. This expression is similar to that used by the Maori, who speak of sacrificed slaves or other people as a whariki, or carpet, for the chief's grave – something on which he can rest. The earliest writers on Fiji, however, show us that the natives of this group far surpassed the Maoris in this savage custom. 

Thus, Williams tells us that when a certain chief was lost at sea, seventeen of his wives were destroyed. Again, when natives were killed at Viwa in 1839, eighty women were strangled to accompany the spirits of their husbands to the afterlife. MJ Matthews, writing from Kaitaia in 1837, tells us of "a wicked old man" who "killed, wantonly killed, a little girl, that his spirit might be present on the spirit of his niece, who was on about to die. »