# Te Tohunga

A
MEMORIAL
TO
THE RT. HON. R. J. SEDDON, P.C. Premier of New Zealand, 1893-1906
TE TOHUNGA
TE TOHUNGA
THE ANCIENT LEGENDS AND TRADITIONS OF THE MAORIS
ORALLY COLLECTED AND PICTURED
BY
W. DITTMER
LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS, LIMITED NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON & CO. 1907
Nau i waka aua te kakahu, he taniko taku
(You wove the garment, I have put the border to it)
Maori Proverb
TO
THE COUNTESS OF RANFURLY
Who was a true friend to Artists and their Art in New Zealand
This Book is Dedicated
By the Author
LIST OF CONTENTS
LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
GLOSSARY
The pronunciation of the vowels in Maori are:
a has the sound of a in rather. e has the„ sound of„ e in dedication.
i has the„ sound of„ ee in sheep. o has the„ sound of„ o in bold, u has the„ sound of„ oo in cook.
Ariki: a high chief, a leader, a master, lord.
Aroha: affection, love.
Atua: a supernatural being, a god.
Haere-mai: come here, welcome.
Haere-ra: good-bye, go, farewell.
Haere-mai-ra, me o tatou mate: come here, that I may sorrow with you.
Karakia: invocation, ceremony, prayer.
Kehua: spirit, ghost.
Kia-ora: welcome, good luck. A greeting.
Kura: red. The sacred colour of the Maori.
Mana: power, authority, prestige, influence, sanctity, luck.
Mere-pounamu: a native weapon made of a rare green stone.
Mua: an old-time Polynesian god.
Piu-piu: short mat made out of flax leaves and neatly decorated.
Po: gloom, darkness, the lower world.
Rangatira: chief, warrior, gentlemen.
Reinga: the spirit land, the home of the dead.
Taiaha: a weapon made of wood.
Tangi: funeral, dirge. Assembly to cry over the dead.
Taniwha: sea monster, water spirit.
Tapu: sacred, supernatural possession of power. Under restriction.
Taua: war party.
Tiki: first man created, a figure carved of wood, or other representation of man.
Tohunga: a priest, a possessor of supernatural powers.
Tohu-mate: omen of death.
Tupuna: ancestor.
Wairua: spirit, soul.
Whare: hut made of fern stems tied together with flax and wines, and roofed in with raupo (reeds).
Whare-puni: large, and often beautifully carved and decorated house. A meeting house.
Whaka-papa: the genealogical history of the Maori, or a tribe, or a family.
PREFACE
With the drawings it began.
An expired world tried to come to life again in the fragments which some old Maori narrated. Nature all around favoured admiration only, and her loneliness was alive with longing.
Of Maori art I had never heard, and, when that art was first offered to me, I had none other to choose. At first it disgusted me. But I had to make use of my time. The evergreen nature was beautiful, and entrancing was her invitation to waste my life in her midst, as she herself was wasting hers.
To protect myself against her allurements, I began the first sketches of old carvings. Then I made more.
Sitting beside me, and looking at my work, an old Maori related the deeds of his ancestor, upon whose carved image I was at work.
And they were mighty deeds!
In the evenings later, at the camp-fire, those deeds lived again in my thoughts, and the imagination busied herself, awkwardly enough, to express new ideas with the help of new forms.
That was the beginning of the first drawing.
Out of books I could learn the old legends, but from the fragmentary narratives of my old friends they sprang into life: so the number of drawings grew—aimless, purposeless.
By that which first had disgusted me I was now greatly attracted; the forest was dreaming while I worked, the river murmured, and a strange people awoke interest and friendship.
Then, one day, came a traveller from Europe. He saw the drawings and spoke the words: “Make a book”, and the magic words: “I’ll get it published!” Then he went his way back to Europe again. It was four years ago.
Because these words were spoken in a far-away country, this book came to life—otherwise the destiny of those first few drawings would doubtless have been the destiny of everything else in the great nature: to wither, to fall to dust. Perhaps it would have been a pity.
As to the text of the book: ’twere better that another had written it. More serious treatises have been published by those with greater opportunities ​to hear and more art to reproduce the legends from the mouths of the old folk now dead and gone, and I owe a good deal to them, especially to Sir George Grey’s Polynesian Mythology and Rev. R. Taylor’s Te ika a Maui, as well as to Mr John White, Mr E. Schirren, and Hamilton’s Maori Art. But it was to my old friends that I chiefly listened, seeking to look into the past through their eyes, to stir my imagination through their memories; yet, even though my pencil may not have done its work amiss, I have grave doubts of the work of my pen.
A part only of the legends is contained in this book: it will suffice to keep alive what I have received from my tattooed friends during the long, long days of a peculiarly strange life. The little that is new in my book does not pretend to be scientific: I have written it to help my drawings along their way.
And, after all, the book would possibly never have been completed without the friends which the drawings made in New Zealand, above all Augustus Hamilton, Director of the Colonial Museum. The encouragement and help I received from him, the benefit of his wide knowledge and love of art and of all things Maori, and his true friendship, gave confidence to my wavering hopes of representing graphically the imaginings of a people so alien to and so distant from the European mind.
At last everything was done: the parting hour came—from the new home back to the old. And now my thoughts are wandering back, often and often, to that distant time when everything was at its beginning: when the tent was pitched under the willow on the river, and from the Maori village on the other shore issued the sounds of happy life; when morning after morning the sun rose golden over the hills, and every night the river reflected the silvery stars; when the willow grew slowly yellow, and the falling leaves gilded the tent; when the smoke of the camp-fire rose blue into the skies—and the first drawing was finished.
W. Dittmer.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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