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17 The Mythological Context
Totemic myths, possibly the oldest kind of Creation myths, occur commonly
in Western Polynesia and Micronesia, though they appear to be absent in Eastern
Polynesia. But although totemic elements relating to the Cosmogonic Tree appear
to be missing from Eastern Polynesia, Samuel Timoti Robinson [6] in a recent book,
Tohunga, The Revival, Ancient Knowledge for the Modern Era, suggests that these
totemic elements may have been preserved in the Society Islands in connection with
the Io religion, full knowledge of which was strictly limited to the highest levels of
priests. With its transmission even to ordinary tribal members forbidden under pain
of death, knowledge of the Cosmogonic Vine and all it represented may well have
been denied to European collectors and so unrecorded in published collections of
Eastern Polynesian myths. In contrast, the central place of Creation myths involving the Cosmogonic Tree in tribal traditions in the Chatham Islands, without tapu
restrictions, suggests its antiquity there and a diffusion path other than one from
Eastern Polynesia.
The preservation of this myth in the Chatham Islands accords with the preservation of two genealogies there, also of great antiquity. The Chathams, cold, remote,
windswept islands lying 870 km east of Christchurch in the Southern Ocean, have
a history of isolation perhaps comparable with that of Easter Island. The Moriori’s
geographical isolation and their immunity from conquest till their enslavement in
historical times appear to have made possible the preservation of ancient mythical
and cultural concepts in forms possibly unchanged from Lapita times.
Many of the early myths about people-creating trees in Island Southeast Asia
are very simple: a banana tree, for example, creates people from her bananas or a
woman uses a banana to impregnate herself and gives birth to a son and daughter
who produce offspring and create the human race; or a tribe claims descent from a
tree. The Moriori myth of the Cosmogonic Tree is very much more sophisticated
than these, though far less developed than Te Arawa myth of the Cosmogonic Vine,
which Robinson sources to Eastern Polynesia. The Moriori myth is concerned with
the relation between the mortal and immortal worlds. Though rooted in the Earth, the
branches of the Cosmogonic Tree reach up through all ten heavens. The Benjamin
fig, the focus for tree worship in the Lapita colonies, in the Spice Islands and in
Indonesia, has aerial roots which stretch down from the tree branches to the ground
where they take root and send up new shoots. The sacred banyan tree of India likewise has aerial roots. Even the Norse World Tree, the huge ash Yggdrasil, harking
back to its tropical origins, has three huge aerial roots. This feature suggests a living
embodiment of the power of the tree to link heaven and earth, to connect the mortal
world of man to the immortal realms of the gods. Because of its linking power, the
tree can be the medium through which supernatural power can flow from otherwise
inaccessible realms to the earth bringing fertility to people, crops and animals. As
the linguist Waruno Mahdi [7] expresses it,
The paradoxical aerial roots of the benjamin tree, reaching down from the branches instead
of being in the ground, apparently marked it as a ‘heavenly’ tree. These aerial roots reached
all the way down, finally to penetrate into the earth, appearing to enact the unification
of the upper- and lower-worlds.. . .Furthermore, aerial roots that had reached the ground
developed into secondary trunks, in which an eerie dark and moist atmosphere
17 The Mythological Context
Totemic myths, possibly the oldest kind of Creation myths, occur commonly
in Western Polynesia and Micronesia, though they appear to be absent in Eastern
Polynesia. But although totemic elements relating to the Cosmogonic Tree appear
to be missing from Eastern Polynesia, Samuel Timoti Robinson [6] in a recent book,
Tohunga, The Revival, Ancient Knowledge for the Modern Era, suggests that these
totemic elements may have been preserved in the Society Islands in connection with
the Io religion, full knowledge of which was strictly limited to the highest levels of
priests. With its transmission even to ordinary tribal members forbidden under pain
of death, knowledge of the Cosmogonic Vine and all it represented may well have
been denied to European collectors and so unrecorded in published collections of
Eastern Polynesian myths. In contrast, the central place of Creation myths involving the Cosmogonic Tree in tribal traditions in the Chatham Islands, without tapu
restrictions, suggests its antiquity there and a diffusion path other than one from
Eastern Polynesia.
The preservation of this myth in the Chatham Islands accords with the preservation of two genealogies there, also of great antiquity. The Chathams, cold, remote,
windswept islands lying 870 km east of Christchurch in the Southern Ocean, have
a history of isolation perhaps comparable with that of Easter Island. The Moriori’s
geographical isolation and their immunity from conquest till their enslavement in
historical times appear to have made possible the preservation of ancient mythical
and cultural concepts in forms possibly unchanged from Lapita times.
Many of the early myths about people-creating trees in Island Southeast Asia
are very simple: a banana tree, for example, creates people from her bananas or a
woman uses a banana to impregnate herself and gives birth to a son and daughter
who produce offspring and create the human race; or a tribe claims descent from a
tree. The Moriori myth of the Cosmogonic Tree is very much more sophisticated
than these, though far less developed than Te Arawa myth of the Cosmogonic Vine,
which Robinson sources to Eastern Polynesia. The Moriori myth is concerned with
the relation between the mortal and immortal worlds. Though rooted in the Earth, the
branches of the Cosmogonic Tree reach up through all ten heavens. The Benjamin
fig, the focus for tree worship in the Lapita colonies, in the Spice Islands and in
Indonesia, has aerial roots which stretch down from the tree branches to the ground
where they take root and send up new shoots. The sacred banyan tree of India likewise has aerial roots. Even the Norse World Tree, the huge ash Yggdrasil, harking
back to its tropical origins, has three huge aerial roots. This feature suggests a living
embodiment of the power of the tree to link heaven and earth, to connect the mortal
world of man to the immortal realms of the gods. Because of its linking power, the
tree can be the medium through which supernatural power can flow from otherwise
inaccessible realms to the earth bringing fertility to people, crops and animals. As
the linguist Waruno Mahdi [7] expresses it,
The paradoxical aerial roots of the benjamin tree, reaching down from the branches instead
of being in the ground, apparently marked it as a ‘heavenly’ tree. These aerial roots reached
all the way down, finally to penetrate into the earth, appearing to enact the unification
of the upper- and lower-worlds.. . .Furthermore, aerial roots that had reached the ground
developed into secondary trunks, in which an eerie dark and moist atmosphere