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Maori Religion and Mythology Part 1

The Use of Human Saliva in Ritual

The Use of Human Saliva in Ritual

We have now to deal with a still more curious usage in connection with Maori ceremonial performances, albeit one that is not wholly unknown to ourselves. We still hear of persons spitting upon a thing for luck, and know that the same act is, or was, employed to accompany a malediction or curse. Inasmuch as it was used in two ways, it would appear that, originally, the act was believed to impart mana, or effectiveness, power, to speech or action; and this is apparently the idea that the Maori had in his mind. We read that the Archbishop of Abyssinia spits upon his congregation as a blessing, so that the episcopal virtue seems to lie in his saliva.

It is well known to us that human saliva was viewed by the Maori as a very effective medium in the practice of the arts of black magic. To obtain a portion of a person's saliva means that his life is in the hands of him who so obtains it. Over such a medium, or ohonga, as it is termed, the magic rite is performed that carries death to the original, the person whose saliva was procured. But Tarakawa has told us that huare (saliva) was also employed in saving a person from the effects of magic arts. Thus, when a person was taken ill, and it was assumed that his illness was caused by some wizard, a portion of the patient's saliva was carried by a priest to the tuahu on a leaf. The expert then performed a rite that caused the spirit of the wizard to appear. With a branchlet of karamu in his hand the expert drove the fly that represented the wizard's spirit into the rua torino, a small pit formed in the earth, where it was destroyed by means of a further ceremony. The physical basis of the spirit, the body of the wizard, would then assuredly perish.

Nicholas relates a curious incident that occurred in 1815, when he purchased a comb worn by a native. Prior to delivering the comb, that had become tapu by being in contact with his head, he performed over it and its purchaser a very curious ceremony. At one stage of the proceedings he applied his spittle to his fingers and crossed the palm of the purchaser's right hand with them.

Mr. White describes a rite performed by an expert in order to ascertain who had bewitched a person. The afflicted one was conducted by the expert to a stream, where, after certain preliminaries, he was told to expectorate into the water. When he had done so the expert caught the saliva in his right hand, and clapped that on his right cheek, whereupon he saw the spirit of the wizard on his left side. Another rite was then performed in order to slay the wizard. Should the sufferer afterwards relent and wish to save the life of the culprit, the expert was again called in. In the performance of this third rite one of his acts page 338was to spit on the applicant's forehead. All these arts of sorcery were, of course, accompanied by charms. This same writer tells us that when a priest had performed the divinatory niu rite, and proceeded to lift the tapu, he would spit upon the mat he had used in the proceedings as a part of the latter ceremony.

Another method of warding off the shafts of magic, as explained by Tutakangahau, of Tuhoe, has a phallic aspect. Thus, a man may believe that a companion is endeavouring to raweke (meddle with) him. He would therefore go aside and appeal to the tangata matua (ure), which organ he would clasp in his hand and titoi (retract the prepuce). He would then spit in his hand, return to the company he had left, and make a motion with that hand as though throwing something at the suspected person. That performance bears a double aspect: it not only preserves him from any possible harm, but also possesses the extra advantage of causing his enemy's arts to recoil upon himself and destroy him.

In an east coast variation of the atahu rite, performed in order to cause a straying wife to return to her husband, the husband applicant was told by the priestly expert to spit into a shell, which shell was manipulated by the expert in a very extraordinary manner.

A simple ceremony known as tuaimu was performed by a man about to engage in a fight. He would spit on his weapon and repeat a charm that was believed to have the desirable effect of weakening any enemy he might encounter in the coming fray. A form of tuaimu was also practised by wrestlers. Tree-fellers were wont to expectorate into the imu, or kerf, in order to prevent their arms becoming weary. A person who encountered a lizard on the path would kill it, spit on it, cut it in picees, and burn it so as to avert the evil omen. In the myth of Maui we note that he spat upon his teka (dart) ere he cast it.

We have noted above that a man would spit upon his weapon as he recited the hoa rakau charm over it. Now, should that man chance to strike down a person whom he did not wish to slay, possibly a distant relative, he would expectorate on his fingers and rub them on the face and body of the stricken one, repeating the following formula in order to bring him back to life: "Hoki mai ki te ao neimahihi or a ki te whai ao, ki te ao marama; korou ora" A native who had explained to me this rite added, "Both the man and his saliva were tapu at the time." The man being in a tapu condition at the time, his saliva would possess the mana necessary to make the rite effective.

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Dr. Shortland, in his Maori Religion and Mythology, details the procedure in the tua rite performed over an infant. At one stage of the proceedings the woman who acted as a ruahine took the child in her arms, passed over it a small piece of cooked fern-root, with which she also touched various parts of its body. She then expectorated on the fern-root, and then deposited it at the tuahu.

Another peculiar act sometimes performed was the ejection of saliva instead of swallowing it, at times when danger was in the air. Thus, when an enemy was endeavouring to bewitch a person by means of a charm or spell of the matakai type it was highly dangerous for the threatened one to swallow either food or saliva, as the deadly spell would at the same time pass down his throat and do its evil work. Shortland gives an illustration of this precautionary act in the work quoted above, when Hine-te-kakara, in opening the tapu oven called umu kohukohu, was careful not to swallow saliva, lest the tapu of the oven should affect her injuriously. In the ceremony that ensued, at a certain juncture Kahu took a portion of the food cooked in the tapu oven, expectorated on it, then breathed on it, and used it as an offering to the image of Tama-te-kapua. These ceremonial acts were connected with the removal of tapu from persons.

Hewitt tells us of a similar custom pertaining to marriage among a certain folk of India, wherein the bride's father acts as priest, and during the ceremony takes hold of the hands of the man and woman and spits on them. Ceremonial spitting also was practised in China, Arabia, Greece, Abyssinia, and elsewhere. Saliva was supposed to possess creative and curative qualities. It brought good luck, and was useful in expelling demons.