Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/54

42 of all matters connected with cultivation. The attributes of Rongo to be found in the traditions of branches of the race outside New Zealand, preclude the idea that his ferocious man-eating and war-like nature as therein depicted, can ever have been represented in New Zealand by the god of peace and agriculture. Moreover it is suggested as a matter worthy of further investigation by those who have the time and the knowledge, whether Māui the navigator, the "fisher up of lands," is not in reality this Rongo-māui, and not the hero of the origin of the fire, who also thrashed the sun—that daring, impish, cheeky demon, so much appreciated by Polynesians. The Rarotongan account of Māui lends considerable weight to the idea that there was a navigator in ancient times named Māui, who visited some country towards the sunrise named Uperu (U-Peru). It may be altogether a too fanciful idea, to suppose that the above name is intended for Peru, for we do not know how old the name of the South American State is; but the kumara is said to grow wild in Central America, and the Quichua name of the root is umar. Māui or Rongo-Māui may have been the benefactor of his race by introducing the kumara to the knowledge of the Polynesians.

But to return to the westward flight of the spirit after death. At first sight it might be said that the Maori belief is contrary to that of other branches of the race, inasmuch as the spirits do not go to the west. But they go to the north-west—to Cape Reinga near the North Cape of N.Z. The explanation of this is simple. Starting from Central Eastern Polynesia, as the ancestors of the Maoris did when they colonised New Zealand, and having as they