The Hau

Here we have another interesting term to deal with, and which, like mauri, has differing aspects as to meaning. In the first place, as regards the hau of man, this may be said to be a quality that page 51combines what we define by the terms personality and aura. At the same time the concept includes features that are not met with in our own beliefs. The hau of man is a quality that pervades his whole being, yet it, or a portion of it, is apparently detachable; it is not located in any organ.

The ordinary meanings of the word hau are "wind" and "air", and this fact confused those who sought to discover the meaning of the hau of man, and such expressions as whangai hau. There is a world-wide connection between terms denoting wind, air, breath and spirit. This Maori concept of the hau is interesting, because by using it as a medium the life of its physical basis might be destroyed. For instance, a portion of a person's hau adheres to any place he has sat upon, or walked over. Another person could, by "scooping up" the invisible hau from that seat, or footprint, and performing certain magic arts over it, slay the one who had sat down or walked thereon. In some cases, were a person suspicious of his neighbours, he would scoop the adhering hau from any place on which he had been sitting, ere he left it, and so bear it away with him. The hau of the human footprint is termed manea by the Tuhoe folk, and a little soil taken from a footprint serves as an excellent medium in wizardry. People have been known to avoid paths and to walk in water wherever possible, so as to avoid leaving any footprints from which their hau might be taken by enemies.

A native will often explain the hau of man by saying that it is his ahua, that is his semblance ("form, as opposed to substance" is the definition of this word in Williams's Maori Dictionary, p. 4). This word ahua is also employed to denote character. The term hau appears to be often used in an anagogic sense, and is used in connection with immaterial things. Thus I have heard natives speak of the hau of a speech or remark. It would be a decided error to describe the hau as a spirit, for that would be to give a wrong impression, and the reader would confuse it with the wairua. The hau is a quality intangible and always invisible, even to gifted seers, an aural quality. The same word is employed to denote fame. The hau of man represents his vitality or vital essence in a way, though not his life principle. The word hauora carries the meanings of health, vigour, spirit of life, healthy.

J. G. Frazer describes a belief among certain natives of New Guinea that seems also to describe the hau of Maori belief. This quality, he remarks, "… pervades the body as sap pervades the tree, and… diffuses itself like corporeal warmth over everything with which the body is brought into contact." This page 52might have been said of the Maori hau, and I am very much inclined to view this as a widespread belief among barbaric peoples.

When a native wished to use the hau of a person as a medium for his magic arts whereby he might slay him, or affect him in other ways, he would endeavour to obtain some material object that was impregnated as it were by his hau. This might be earth on which his footprint had been impressed, a lock of his hair, a shred from his garment, some of his spittle, anything to which some of his hau adhered. This material medium is often called the hau, but the precise name for it is ohonga. Over this object were performed the dread rites of the warlock that affected the original, the physical basis of the immaterial hau.

The same term is applied to various forms of mediums. When a victory had been won over an enemy one of the first acts of the victorious party was to take the hau or ahua of such victory. This was some material medium, such as a lock of hair from the head of a slain enemy, and it is often called a mawe. This was taken to the village home, and to the sacred place of that village, where a ceremony called whangai hau was performed over it. This rite seems to have been in honour of the gods, an offering of the hau of the victory to such gods. The lock of hair is the ahua of the victory, as the ohonga described above is the ahua of the human hau.

In an old recital we are told that, in olden times, it was a custom among sea rovers to take every precaution to protect their lives and welfare when about to set forth on a voyage, as also to ensure the safety of their vessels as far as human forethought could effect it. The procedure was to convey the ahua or semblance of a vessel and of its crew to a tapu place and there perform a rite over it that placed vessel and crew under the care of the gods. The ahua might be represented by something material, however small an object. In one such account the term mauri is applied to it, and the ahua would certainly serve as a mauri. This performance was a form of neolithic insurance.

In one version of the myth of Maui hauling land up from the ocean depths we are told that he conveyed the mauri of his "fish" to the place of rites that priestly experts might perform a highly necessary ceremony over it. It is not usual to employ the word mauri in this connection, but rather the term ahua or mawe. This is usually some material object that is used as a medium to represent the original, as mediumistic objects are used in black magic.

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Material mauri, such as the talismanic stone that preserved the productiveness of a forest, are often alluded to as hau. These mauri represent the powers of the gods that conserve such productiveness and healthy vigour, that is to say, that protect the immaterial hau of the forest. Offerings were made to the mauri of a forest, strictly speaking to the gods inherent in the mauri.The first bird caught of the season was so offered. This is called an offering to the hau of the forest (he whangai i te hau o te ngahere). Now there is some interlocked reasoning here in the Maori mind. The mauri is responsible for the presence of the birds in the forest, and the powers of a priestly expert endowed the mauri with its powers, hence the birds are said to belong to such gods. Certain birds of the first catch are cooked at a tapu fire and eaten by the priestly experts so that the hau or vital essence or semblance of the slain birds may return to the forest and its mauri. Verily the hapless person who essays to probe into the Maori mind and fathom its erratic ways and manifestations treadeth a tortuous path.

The ohonga or material medium that represents the human hau in magic rites seems to be known as maunu at the Hawaiian Isles. Unfortunately no collector seems to have enquired deeply into the spiritual concepts of natives of Polynesia; the matter on record is extremely meagre.

The hau of both man and forests needed protection, inasmuch as both could be destroyed or injuriously affected by magic arts. Hence this immaterial quality was protected, often by means of material mauri, from such dangers. All such protective measures, whether mauri or charms, drew their virtue from the gods.