THE BOOK
THE “SPIRIT OF TRUTH” IN NEW ZEALAND’S MAORI CULTURE:
The second stone-age group that appeared to possess a notion of the Highest kind of Being was the cannibal Maori race of New Zealand. As incongruous and unlikely as it might sound, this belief was recorded by early European chroniclers at a time when Maori were engaged in very savage tribal wars, and cannibalism was simply a regular part of Maori life.
From the book: Maori Myth and Mythology, Vol.1, Best. An early chronicler of Maori culture shortly after European arrival, Elsdon Best states:
‘There was, however, a belief in a “Supreme Being” in the cult of Io’.
‘Much vagueness surrounds this figure with little of any real substance
available to provide a description of him. Since Io was a key figure then, and
seems to be assuming an important role in latter-day Maori thinking, it is
important to examine his position. Evidently, according to Elsdon Best, no
form of offering or sacrifice was made to Io, no image was ever made, and
he had no “aria”, or form of incarnation that inferior gods had. “Invocations
to Io were made only on the most important occasions such as the birth,
sickness or death of a person of rank, the opening of the tapu [sacred]
school of learning, the installation of the medium of a god, or any serious
calamity threatening the tribe...”, records Best. In keeping with such a
highly sacred supreme deity, only the highest of the priestly caste and
chiefly rank were permitted to know the mysteries of Io. Best further states
that the ancient chants to Io, the “ritual formulae” of the old karakia
[prayer] were “... couched in exceedingly archaic language.”
... an examination of the ritual referred to shows that the Maori concept of
the Supreme Being was pitched upon a high plane of thought. The purity of
the conception, and the practices of the cultus, were doubtless preserved by
allowing people to deal with lower types of gods, or even to practice
shamanism (tohungaism) if they were so disposed.’
‘The Supreme Being had many different names and was said to have existed for all time i.e., he was never born. He was Io-matua-kore (Io of no parents), the origin of the Universe and the lower gods. Another of his names was Io-te-waiora, the welfare of everything, the physical and the Spiritual; all things emanate from Io.’
| Io | the core of all gods |
| Io-nui | greatest of all gods |
| Io-roa | everlasting, not knowing death |
| Io-matua | the parent of human beings and of all things |
| o-matua-kore | the parentless, nothing but himself |
| Io-taketake | permanent, all enduring, complete, immovable |
| Io-te-pukenga | the source of all things – all things are his in possession |
| Io-te-wananga | the source of all knowledge, whether good or evil |
| Io-te-toi-o-nga-rangi | the crown of the heavens – no heaven beyond his |
| o-matanui | the all-seeing (large or many-eyed) |
| Io-matangaro | the hidden (unseen) face – unless he allows it to be so |
| Io-mataaho | seen only in a radiant light |
| Io-te-whiwhia | name denotes that nothing can possess anything of its own volition |
| Io-urutapu | the totally sacred – more tapu than all other gods and things |
(Maori Religion and Mythology, Vol.1, Best, p.144.)
Notwithstanding the apparent “secrecy” surrounding this figure and the extreme sacredness attached to it, such a “purity of conception” is a most unusual concept, even among modern, so-called “civilised” races. For a Neolithic stone-age, cannibal people to accord veneration the apparent understanding of a “Supreme Being” --- to the degree that the knowledge was held in the hands of a select few and denied to the ordinary people --- reveals the most extraordinary and enigmatic paradox. Moreover, that a stone-age people could list and therefore understand the very attributes they attributed to Io reveals a remarkable grasp of non-material concepts.
For a race that had seemingly never known such contact or association is extraordinary, and perhaps even upsets the general trend of academic thought about how and why certain races might come into possession of such elevated concepts -- apparently on their own.’
For if the knowledge was genuinely sacred, encompassed in the legends and waiata [song] from some distant past, and known only to a select few in its entirety, how was it possible for any race to degenerate to the level that the Maori did with such a supposedly high and pure concept of a Supreme Being; especially where the ruling class deemed the “knowledge” too sacred for the ordinary tribes-people?
Or had the Maori of New Zealand simply regressed so far, that what might once have been beneficial guidelines had become too far distant and remote for this increasingly wild race? And through this degeneration only a small remnant of the original pure teaching remained which could have no further affinity with the path that Maori had now embarked upon --- cannibalism.
If that was the case, the “narrowing of spiritual horizons” and the concomitant loss of the original understanding of Io, perhaps then allowed for a second, lower tier of Gods that, in the Maori perception, enabled them to possibly “legitimise” their more savage practices.
In other words, the acceptance of a “Supreme Being”, but without the correct and necessary spiritual understanding of it by the ruling elite, perhaps necessitated the need to have more “accessible” gods on which to call. Gods who would undertake to protect and sanction all their endeavours, whatever form they might take. Such a scenario, however, reveals a complete lack of knowledge of Spiritual Law, if a people seek to have a separate being for each kind of endeavour.
More particularly if the group ascribe to each entity a different set of laws that could easily conflict with each other yet at the same time holding in sacred veneration a “Being” to whom they could find no ready access, but who ostensibly epitomised the very highest of religious perceptions.
According to Best, Io was known to the people of the Cook and Society groups, so was probably brought to Aotearoa from there. He states:
‘As to how far across the ocean this belief and name may have been carried no man can say, or as to how many centuries the Maori has retained this belief.’
And a further interesting entry from Maori Religion and Mythology Vol 1, Best, reads:
‘It is just possible that the ancestors of the Maori brought the name of Io from an Asiatic home-land. In Renan’s History of the People of Israel the author states that the name of Iahveh, or Iahoue, became contracted into Iahoue or Io. Of a verity it would be a startling discovery to find that Io is but a form of the name Jehovah.’
The end outcome for Maori --- as it was for most colonised peoples --- was the arrival of the European and the Bible. From that fateful meeting arose a line of successive Maori prophets to culminate in one upon whom was “conferred” the “ability to heal” and the gift of prophecy --- (one among many he proclaimed occurred whilst in London before World War II where he predicted the future ‘Blitz’ on the city).
The Archangel, Gabriel, is recorded as being the ‘Servant’ who so conferred those key abilities. He, of course, guided Mohammed, giving to him the teachings of the Koran, but in its original form, not what it is today.
(We will later learn, from what is known by many religions as the Book of Life, the true story of the life of Mohammed. That too, is in The All-Truth!)
Like Mohammed, Ratana also founded a Faith, but it was based on a more spiritualised Bible interpretation than that which the European missionaries took to New Zealand.
He also built a Temple upon which no Maori cultural insignia was placed. Rather, he had displayed thereupon the emblems of all the great religions of humanity – including aspects of the Islamic religion -– thus denoting his clear recognition that “elements of Truth” ran through them all.
Such was the strength of his Prophetship and “Calling” that in the settlement he founded, his gift of healing earned him international renown. A museum there today holds hundreds of walking sticks, crutches, and wheelchairs --- left by infirm individuals who, after being healed, simply discarded them, and walked away. This is not fanciful conjecture; it is historical fact.
The tragedy for the Maori race as a whole people is that through this Prophet, Ratana, they were the only race in the whole aeons-long journey of human beings who, at one single and clearly-defined moment in history [the early part of the 20th century] could have left tribalism behind to become one people. Historically, that has been the natural progression of most of the defined, cultural races today. However, even though tens of thousands flocked to his Movement, many within the race preferred to stay strongly affiliated to tribal groupings: A ‘spiritually-retrograde’ step.
Perhaps the singularly-amazing aspect to the whole Prophetship of Ratana was that it was set in place in the century previous to his Calling by a famed cannibal chief who waged savage wars of revenge against other tribes. At the same time, however, the same chief encouraged Christian missionaries to live in his domain and teach to his people and his slaves the Scriptures; the knowledge out of which the line of Maori Prophets ultimately emerged.