The Maori mind conceived of the Universe as divided into three regions—­the Heavens above, the Earth beneath, and the Darkness under the Earth.  To Rangi, the Heaven, the privileged souls of chiefs and priests returned after death, for from Rangi had come down their ancestors the gods, the fathers of the heroes.  For the souls of the common people there was in prospect no such lofty and serene abode.  They could not hope to climb after death to the tenth heaven, where dwelt Rehua, the Lord of Loving-kindness, attended by an innumerable host.  Ancient of days was Rehua, with streaming hair.  The lightning flashed from his arm-pits, great was his power, and to him the sick, the blind, and the sorrowful might pray.

It was not the upper world of Ao or Light, but an under world of Po or Darkness, to which the spirit of the unprivileged Maori must take its way.  Nor was the descent to Te Reinga or Hades a facilis descensus Averni.  After the death-chant had ceased, and the soul had left the body—­left it lying surrounded by weeping blood-relations marshalled in due order—­it started on a long journey.  Among the Maoris the dead were laid with feet pointing to the north, as it was thither that the soul’s road lay.  At the extreme north end of New Zealand was a spot Muri Whenua—­Land’s End.  Here was the Spirits’ Leap.  To that the soul travelled, halting once and again on the hill-tops to strip off the green leaves in which the mourners had clad it.  Here and there by the wayside some lingering ghost would tie a knot in the ribbon-like leaves of the flax plant—­such knots as foreigners hold to be made by the whipping of the wind.  As the souls gathered at their goal, nature’s sounds were hushed.  The roar of the waterfall, the sea’s dashing, the sigh of the wind in the trees, all were silenced.  At the Spirits’ Leap on the verge of a tall cliff grew a lonely tree, with brown, spreading branches, dark leaves and red flowers.  The name of the tree was Spray-Sprinkled.[1] One of its roots hung down over the cliff’s face to the mouth of a cavern fringed by much sea-weed, floating or dripping on the heaving sea.  Pausing for a moment the reluctant shades chanted a farewell to their fellow-men and danced a last war-dance.  Amid the wild yells of the invisible dancers could be heard the barking of their dogs.  Then, sliding down the roots, the spirits disappeared in the cave.  Within its recesses was a river flowing between sandy shores.  All were impelled to cross it.  The Charon of this Styx was no man, but a ferrywoman called Rohe.  Any soul whom she carried over and who ate the food offered to it on the further bank was doomed to abide in Hades.  Any spirit who refused returned to its body on earth and awoke.  This is the meaning of what White men call a trance.

[Footnote 1:  Pohutu-kawa.]

As there were successive planes and heights in Heaven, so there were depths below depths in the Underworld.  In the lowest and darkest the soul lost consciousness, became a worm, and returning to earth, died there.  Eternal life was the lot of only the select few who ascended to Rangi.