17.6 The Te Arawa Myth of the Cosmogonic Vine
297
and astronomical knowledge are encoded in Homer’s Odyssey [14]. Jeff Evans
[15] quotes examples from the Caroline Islands where navigational information is
passed between navigators and generations in simple stories known as aruruwow.
He quotes an example from Arthur Grimble’s Migration Myth and Magic from the
Gilbert Islands in which the hero has just begun a journey:
when he comes across an old woman sitting in the door of her house (a figurative description
of the star cluster Pleiades), on whom he played some familiar trick which causes her to flee
westwards (towards the setting sun). Later he meets a man sailing his canoe from the east
(similar to the cross section of a canoe, this refers to the V-shape in the constellation Taurus,
featuring the star Aldebaran. The two talk until the old woman falls into the sea (Pleiades
sets), making such a hideous noise as she disappears, that the hero runs away to the east and
takes refuge with two old lepers (the sailing course changes to head towards Gemini).
Robinson’s study of the Cosmogonic Vine myth shows how an account of the
creation of the world was used by Te Arawa, a significant tribal group from Eastern
Polynesia who arrived with the last migration fleet to New Zealand in about AD
1400 (see Chapter 18). They used the myth to encode complex beliefs for tohunga
(priests) about the acquisition and practice of spiritual power. The Creation of the
world is perceived as a cosmic evolution, moving from ages of po, darkness (corresponding to states of ignorance in man), to ages of light (corresponding to states
involving spiritual knowledge, awareness and power). What, at the literal level traces
the cosmogonic sequence in the evolution of the world, is for the trained adept an
encoded guide to the development of personal spiritual knowledge and power.
There is a huge leap in cultural evolution from the tribal story of people being
created from bananas to the complexity of traditional knowledge which Robinson
reveals. Encoded in details of the evolution of the world is what virtually amounts
to an esoteric philosophical treatise woven around the Cosmogonic Vine.
The Moriori versions of the separation of Heaven and Earth and of the creation
of man, we have argued, embody the essential concept of the Cosmogonic Tree as
the link between worlds – a link that, through the power of karakia, can be used
to bring the spiritual power and creative force manifest in the higher worlds into
the lower world in which man lives. The tree’s power can enable miracles to be
effected: to control nature, to ensure fertility for animals, plants and men, to heal
sickness, to calm storms at sea. The Creation stories of the Sky-Propper’s separation
of Heaven and Earth and of the creation of man provide the generic examples of such
power being drawn through karakia calling upon the primal creative power of the
Cosmogonic Tree. Implicit is the belief that karakia enable a tohunga too to call
power from the higher worlds through the Cosmogonic Tree.
In Te Arawa traditions, Robinson reveals, the concept of the role of the tohunga
has evolved: the tree is no longer needed. Like the tree, the tohunga himself can
make the link between the lower and higher worlds, mentally and spiritually reach
up to the higher worlds to call down their power to effect miracles on Earth. In
a much more richly detailed analysis of the processes and stages of Creation, Te
Arawa secret traditions encode a practical handbook for a tohunga’s mental and
spiritual training. The information was tapu, sacred, limited to the few who were
chosen to become tohungas.
297
and astronomical knowledge are encoded in Homer’s Odyssey [14]. Jeff Evans
[15] quotes examples from the Caroline Islands where navigational information is
passed between navigators and generations in simple stories known as aruruwow.
He quotes an example from Arthur Grimble’s Migration Myth and Magic from the
Gilbert Islands in which the hero has just begun a journey:
when he comes across an old woman sitting in the door of her house (a figurative description
of the star cluster Pleiades), on whom he played some familiar trick which causes her to flee
westwards (towards the setting sun). Later he meets a man sailing his canoe from the east
(similar to the cross section of a canoe, this refers to the V-shape in the constellation Taurus,
featuring the star Aldebaran. The two talk until the old woman falls into the sea (Pleiades
sets), making such a hideous noise as she disappears, that the hero runs away to the east and
takes refuge with two old lepers (the sailing course changes to head towards Gemini).
Robinson’s study of the Cosmogonic Vine myth shows how an account of the
creation of the world was used by Te Arawa, a significant tribal group from Eastern
Polynesia who arrived with the last migration fleet to New Zealand in about AD
1400 (see Chapter 18). They used the myth to encode complex beliefs for tohunga
(priests) about the acquisition and practice of spiritual power. The Creation of the
world is perceived as a cosmic evolution, moving from ages of po, darkness (corresponding to states of ignorance in man), to ages of light (corresponding to states
involving spiritual knowledge, awareness and power). What, at the literal level traces
the cosmogonic sequence in the evolution of the world, is for the trained adept an
encoded guide to the development of personal spiritual knowledge and power.
There is a huge leap in cultural evolution from the tribal story of people being
created from bananas to the complexity of traditional knowledge which Robinson
reveals. Encoded in details of the evolution of the world is what virtually amounts
to an esoteric philosophical treatise woven around the Cosmogonic Vine.
The Moriori versions of the separation of Heaven and Earth and of the creation
of man, we have argued, embody the essential concept of the Cosmogonic Tree as
the link between worlds – a link that, through the power of karakia, can be used
to bring the spiritual power and creative force manifest in the higher worlds into
the lower world in which man lives. The tree’s power can enable miracles to be
effected: to control nature, to ensure fertility for animals, plants and men, to heal
sickness, to calm storms at sea. The Creation stories of the Sky-Propper’s separation
of Heaven and Earth and of the creation of man provide the generic examples of such
power being drawn through karakia calling upon the primal creative power of the
Cosmogonic Tree. Implicit is the belief that karakia enable a tohunga too to call
power from the higher worlds through the Cosmogonic Tree.
In Te Arawa traditions, Robinson reveals, the concept of the role of the tohunga
has evolved: the tree is no longer needed. Like the tree, the tohunga himself can
make the link between the lower and higher worlds, mentally and spiritually reach
up to the higher worlds to call down their power to effect miracles on Earth. In
a much more richly detailed analysis of the processes and stages of Creation, Te
Arawa secret traditions encode a practical handbook for a tohunga’s mental and
spiritual training. The information was tapu, sacred, limited to the few who were
chosen to become tohungas.