Tuahu

The student of Maori tradition searches in vain for evidence of the use of temples, altars, or any elaborate or permanent erections used in connection with religious ceremonies of old. In parts of Polynesia, such as the Society and Sandwich groups, Polynesians have erected massive stone structures and enclosures related to their religion, but we search in vain for such places in New Zealand. Here, no form of building has ever been erected to serve as a temple for the service of offerings. Places designated as tuahu, or sacred places, were in some cases apparently unmarked. Sometimes a rough, unworked stone, or several such stones, would be erected at such a place, but otherwise the place would be allowed to remain practically in its natural state. Occasionally, we are told, a small platform of sticks, called a tiepa, was erected at such a place, on which offerings to the gods were placed. I find the following notes on these tapu places in my notebooks:—

In some cases, a tuahu was marked by a pile of rough rough stones, and sometimes by one or more standing stone blocks, partially sunk into the earth. The term tuahu seems to have been applied, by some clans at least, to any place where men's hair is cut, where tapu food is thrown or offered to supernatural beings, or where any religious ceremony is performed. The turuma, or village latrine, served in some cases as a tuahu.

In the published documents and unprinted notes of Mr. John White, we find the word mua applied to a tuahu, as well as to carved figures used as temporary shrines. We can find no justification for its use as a name for such a shrine, but as a synonym for tuahu it is closer to the truth. In this sense: mua is the antithesis of muri; mua = the front, before; muri = behind, behind, after. Any noa common place can be called muri or ki muri; therefore, muri and kamuri are terms applied to a cooking shelter. 'Heria nga kai ki muri' = 'to convey the food backwards' – that is, to the rear regions, the site of the kitchens, the place devoid of tapu. Similarly, mua can refer to any chosen residence or area, as in Vavau mua is the part of a village inhabited by the chiefs. Thus, any place of tapu, including tuahu, can be called mua. In Mr. White's case, however, mua is used as a proper personal noun, as a person's name is used (e.g., "Ka heria ki a Mua"), and for this usage we cannot find no authority whatsoever. In other cases, he uses the expression ki te mua, which is also a dubious quantity. The only form the current author has ever heard is ki mua, and it is the only form to which no exception can be made. On the island hawaiian, a structure in the heiau was known as mua.

Among the illustrations prepared for John White's Ancient History of the Maori is one "one tuahu and six hara". It has nothing to do with the tuahu Maori. This is an illustration of a sacred place at Tahiti, Society Group, which originally appeared in the Travels of cooking, and later in the Polynesian Researches of Ellis and the work of Rienzi. As for the so-called hara, or carved boards, we have no information to show that they represent Maori use.

The raised platform on which the offerings were placed was often called whata, the ordinary name for all similar erections. The names whata puaroa and whata roa have also been applied to these stages. In his work Te lka a Maui, the Reverend R. Taylor speaks of three different scenes erected in a sacred place where religious ceremonies took place, which scenes were known as Paiahua, Whitipana and Pou-whakaturia. It seems to have been Taranaki usage. It is explained that the pouwhiro, or chief priest, performed his rites at one of these stages in a state of nudity. The place was surrounded by a fence or barrier of some sort, outside of which stood the tauira, or students of the priests. Outside these were still the people who gathered to watch the proceedings. At the end of the ceremony, a feast was usually held, and such a meal was always ceremonial in nature. Separate ovens were needed to prepare food for people of different classes and degrees of tapu, as the Maori were very picky in this matter. The word for a steam oven, umu (with its variant form imu) was often used to denote a ritual, as was the word ahi (fire) when an open tapu fire was employed in the performance of religious ceremonies. Thus, we have as well-known names of ritual performances the terms imu waharoa, umu pongipongi and ahi purakau.

The word pouahu seems to be equivalent to tuahu, but its use is restricted. The old natives of the Bay of Plenty district know him. A famous one would have been located in Whakatane. Some of these places seem to have been given special names, such as Ahurei, a famous sacred place in Maketu, Kawhia. These places of tapu were generally located at a short distance from a village, in a secluded place which no one approached at ordinary hours. Such an act of trespassing was strongly felt, and for an unauthorized person to step on such a place was to risk death at the hands of the gods. Indeed, physical illnesses were often attributed to such a cause, the commission of a hara, a breach of the rules of tapu.

Interestingly, there were once several different forms of tuahu. Some were used only for the performance of high-class ceremonies; such was the ahurewa. Others, like the rua-iti, seem to have been used only for purposes as evil as the destruction of life. There also appears to have been an intermediate type of place where ordinary ceremonial took place, such as that relating to various industries and warfare, which itself may be considered a native industry.

The ahurewa was certainly a very important place, apparently the most important of all the tuahu. It was often a real place, but the term seems to have also been applied to certain conditions, and even to people, such as a high-ranking tohunga, or a priest. The late Colonel Gudgeon said that in certain circumstances the ahurewa can be anywhere. It sometimes denotes a condition such as when a man places himself wholeheartedly in the power of the gods. Human powers are no longer useful, and he leaves the matter entirely to the gods, with a remark such as "Ki a koe, e Rehual" ("Your turn, O Rehua!") Hakiaha, the most learned man in the Whanganui district, agreeing with the previous definition.

A native authority affirms that the tapu place called ahurewa could be located in the open air, or inside a hut specially erected for this purpose; such a hut or house would be called whare tuahu. Among the Takitumu of the east coast of our North Island, the ahurewa was not considered a tuahu, although it fulfilled its functions. It was not located outside, but inside the whare wananga, or tapu school of learning, behind the three posts supporting the ridge. Such a place was marked by one or more stones, an account of which appears in the description of the whare wananga. Ceremonies relating to teaching the knowledge of tapu to young people took place at this ahurewa. Nor is it a modern institution, inasmuch as we are told that when Tane visited the kingdom of Io, the pure ceremony was performed upon him at the ahurewa.

Tea ahurangi is said to have been another form of tuahu, but we have no information as to its peculiarities. The word haha itself was employed to denote a mound used in the performance of certain ceremonies; it was sometimes called a fuck. Ahupuke is yet another term for a tuahu, perhaps a distinctive form. In an account of the street torino rite of black magic given in vol. 3 of the Journal of the Polynesian Society, p. 169, the ahupuke is alluded to as a place at which the rite was performed. In his account of the old-time fortified native villages of the Maori Mr. WH Skinner, in vol. 20 of the same Log, tells us that a sacred place might be found within the village limits, and perhaps near the residence of the high chieftain of the ceremony. He proceeds: “This was the sacred place of the not, tea tuahu tapatai (sacred altar). It was a small enclosure fenced round with high posts, in which was an erection called the pou tapu, in the form of a canoe-end fixed in the ground. Into this enclosure only the priest entered, except when for any purpose some one of the people desired the aid of the priest. Under such circumstances he was allowed within whilst the incantations were going on. This sacred spot or pillar was also called pou whakatipua, gold pou whakakikiwa. When, however, the sacred spot or pillar, the pou tapu, was situated near the waharao, or main gateway, as it should be, then near it was kept the waka, or receptacle (usually a wooden box) in which the emblem of the particular god of the tribe or not was kept. It was from this sacred enclosure that the priest addressed the people when the will of the gods required to be made known. There was a particular kind of receptacle called kawiu, To pataka on a pole, where the waka of the god was kept. It is thus seen that a tuahu might be situated within the limits of a village, or it might be outside it, possibly at some very secluded place. The term “altar,” applied above to these places, sounds somewhat grandiose when we know that they were remarkable for lack of any altar-like aspect. In vol. 27 of the Journal of the Polynesian Society, at p. 83, is an account of the PAGE 276performance of magic rites at a tuahu tapatahi, a mode of spelling not usually employed. It is stated that such a place was also known as a tuahu hauora when used for the performance of ceremonies pertaining to life and welfare. Such a place is said to have been simply a small mound of earth. Such mounds, termed haha and puke, often figured in Maori ceremonial.

Another term applied to tuahu is kauhanganui. It is alluded to at p. 207 of vol. 3 of the Polynesian Journal, where Tarakawa says: “There were many kinds of tuahu: one is the tapatai; another is the ahupuke; another is the torino; another is the ahurewa—a useful one, for it can be moved about; also the ahurangi, which success man; indeed, a priest can utilize his own hand as a tuahu for his charms. » In cases where a tuahu was moved to another site, some of the earth of the place was taken to the new site. In the same volume of the above Log, at p. 152, appears an account of a sorcerer named Kaihamu utilizing his own hand as a tuahu to impart mana to his spells of magic. This resourceful person was confined in a house surrounded by enemies. Having no tuahu at hand, he employed his cupped hand as a substitute, recited his charms, and thrust them forth through the windowspace—a peculiar gesture. The act was effective, and Kaihamu escaped. We thus see that to recite ritual at a tuahu imparted mana, or power, to such ritual, and this would be the result of locating a certain atua (god or gods) at such place.

A good native authority has told us that the form of sacred place termed an ahurewa was likewise known as ahumairangi. In some cases tuahu were situated at places difficult of access, such as precipitous places. A great many ceremonies pertaining to birth, sickness, death, war, and innumerable other subjects were performed at such places, a number of which will be explained later on. A person would pride himself on being able to say, "I was taken to such a tuahu at birth to have the you are rite performed over me. This was a mild species of boast, a karanga whakai.

It is a very singular fact that the turuma or latrine of a village often served as a place where what must be called religious ceremonies were performed. Rites related to many subjects were practiced there. We are told that the reason for this strange procedure was that it was a place where interruption was unlikely—a place steeped in a phase of tapu; intruders would not trouble such a place. I am strongly inclined to doubt this explanation and believe there is more behind it. Why should rites be performed in such a place? In addition, the latrine itself entered into functions, as seen in the very extraordinary ceremony known as the ngau paepae, in which a person was forced to "bite" the horizontal beam of the latrine. The late scholar Tutakangahau gave me some very curious information regarding particular opinions or beliefs related to latrines. The space behind the horizontal beam (paepae) seems to have been called the kouka, and in a way this represented death, while the space in front of the bar represented life. It seems possible to the author that the strange attitude of the Maori towards the turuma has its origins in their belief in the inherent powers of the genitals, which we will discuss later.

Allied to the tuahu, there was another form of sacred place where ceremonies took place. It was the wai tapu of a hamlet, stream or pond at or in which tapu rites were practiced. Such a stream, or part of it, was set aside for such purposes, so to speak, and regarded as a place not to be trespassed upon. The names wai kotikoti and wai whakaika were applied to these streams among the Matatua people of the Bay of Plenty district, but they were usually simply called wai tapu, a name indicating that these places were reserved for special purposes and might not be violated. A considerable number of religious ceremonies were performed in these waterways, with lustration and immersion forming an important feature of Maori ritual.

The terms uruahu and uruuru tapu are given in William's Maori dictionary as being equivalent to tuahu. Tregear's Maori Comparative Dictionary gives tuahu as the name for part of a marae in Tahiti, and ahu as the Marquesas Islands term for a sacred place. In Mrs. Routledge's work on Easter Island, we are told that the old stone platforms on this strange island are called ahu. The Tahitian marae was an erection in the shape of a truncated pyramid, built in a series of steps on which priests of various ranks would have stood while performing ceremonies. The name is applied to a square or open space in a village or in front of a house in New Zealand and also in Polynesia, so it is quite possible that the name was not applied to the real stone building, but in the place where it was located, or the open space in front of it. In a reference to Polynesian stone buildings called marae, Colonel Gudgeon told us that the tauira was placed above the people, i.e. on one of the lower steps or platforms, and the pukenga above the tauira, while above all was the chief priest of the god to whom the building was dedicated. If these stone pyramids were built in eastern Polynesia before the departure of the ancestors of the New Zealand Maori from these regions, then they represent one of the Polynesian institutions that were not introduced here. No such erection has been known in New Zealand, where none of the stone platforms, statues, etc., found in various parts of the Pacific are found. The only stone works encountered in New Zealand are the stone-faced escarpments seen at the sites of ancient fortified villages. In such cases, the stones used are simply rough, unworked rocks. It is a singular and very interesting fact that the Polynesian immigrants to these islands abandoned certain customs, etc., of their former homeland, and developed or adopted others which were unknown there. An explanation of these changes would certainly throw much light on the question of the original settlement of New Zealand.

The Moriori people of the Chatham Islands had the same name, tuahu, for places of tapu, as well as another name, tuwhatu, for what was apparently a similar place, a place marked by a stone, where offerings to the atua were deposited.

In his account of the natives of the island of Niue, MS Percy Smith tells us that "it is clear that there were places in ancient times which must, to some extent, have been sacred, where their rites were accomplished. These are called tutu, and are mounds, more or less flat at the top, and which present every appearance of being partly artificial. … Formerly, they were the sites of faituga. It is not shown that the faituga was anything in the form of a building, it was probably simply a tuahu. In Eastern Polynesia, the term ranga was applied to such a sacred place.