Handbook to the ethnographical collections . ri mythology containeda number of heroic or semi-divinecharacters. Such was Maui, who fishedup the North Island from the bottomof the sea wuth a hook made of hisgrandfathers jawbone. Small figures of the gods, consistingof a grotesque head on a {)ointed stick,were used in making offerings. Butthe supernatural belief which enteredinto and aftected every department of native life was the Ijelief in tabu (see p. -30). Persons andthings were either inherently tabu, such as chiefs and theirpossessions, graveyards and the like; or the tabu was imposed bya
Handbook to the ethnographical collections . ri mythology containeda number of heroic or semi-divinecharacters. Such was Maui, who fishedup the North Island from the bottomof the sea wuth a hook made of hisgrandfathers jawbone. Small figures of the gods, consistingof a grotesque head on a {)ointed stick,were used in making offerings. Butthe supernatural belief which enteredinto and aftected every department of native life was the Ijelief in tabu (see p. -30). Persons andthings were either inherently tabu, such as chiefs and theirpossessions, graveyards and the like; or the tabu was imposed bya chief or priest upon growing crops, certain objects or localities,or it was communicated to certain individuals by certain definite class of priests existed, whose duties were to lay andremove tabus, to make offerings to the gods, to ])erfurm theincantati(ms inseparable from every important action in a nativeslife, to practise divination and to oljserve omens. Fret^uently the priest delivered oracles under the direct inspira- N 2. Fig. 159.—Sacrificial kriifoedged with shark-teeth. NewZeahind. 180 OCEANIA
Size: 1071px × 2332px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookauthorjoycetho, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1910
