Maori Divination
Because of the ever-changing natural environment, divination among the Maoris involved interpreting fluctuations in these natural sources. For example, a leaf might be cast into the wind and the way it flew and fell would be interpreted by the tohunga as a favour or otherwise from the deity invoked.
Kites, in the shape of men or animals, were flown and the directions they moved in were used to foretell the likely success of a venture, especially in war.
Interpretation relied on the intuitions and inspirations of the tohunga and so Maori divination is especially suitable as a focus for modern personal decision-making, because there are no fixed meanings but rather triggers for our own inner voice to tell us the best way forward.
Rituals were carried out by the tohunga for matters of tribal importance, although ordinary Maoris and even children would use the simpler divinatory rites to discover whether they were favoured by the gods. Although many of the tribal rites involved the success of war parties, they might also divine whether a time was auspicious for fishing or hunting.
There were several variations of the niu ritual. In war divination, the deity Tu-Matauenga would be invoked for his blessing, as well as the appropriate tribal gods and ancestors. War was considered a positive way of expressing loyalty to ancestors and avenging any recent ghosts of those lost in war or killed by the forces of an opposing chief’s malevolent magic men (tohunga makatu).
In one version of the ritual, a tohunga placed a mat on the ground and after fasting and prayer, took fern stalks in his hand, one for each of the chiefs who were going to war. Each ‘home tribe’ stick was given the name of a particular chief and tied with a piece of flax. The same number of fern stalks without flax ties were chosen to denote chiefs of the opposing tribe. The set of ‘enemy warrior’ sticks was fastened upright through the mat.
The tohunga took up the ‘home warrior’ sticks and threw each one in turn at a stick without a tie. If the named stick dropped to the left of the chosen upright stick, the named chief would fall. If it dropped to the right, the named chief would survive enemy attack. This was done for all the chiefs on the war party, using different ‘enemy warrior chiefs’. The results would determine whether the time was auspicious to proceed with the raid.
