The religion of the Maoris was originally a poetical and mytho-
logical conception of nature and hero-worship of a very confused
character, and without having been reduced to any systematic order.
The generic name of atua which applied to every kind of super-
natural beings and mysterious objects did not convey a distinct idea
of a god or a divinity, but it was simply an invisible shadow-like
existence, an impalpable breath, whose nature was mysterious without
definite attributes or well-defined powers of action. It is pretended
that the Maoris recognised a supreme god, whom they believed to be
powerful and eternal and the creator and preserver of the world,
which is merely the echo of the missionary teaching, for their language,
before it was spiritualised and perverted by the translation of the
Bible, had neither specific words to give expression to the ideas in-
volved in this belief, nor could their mode of thinking ever have
originated the abstract conception of a creative power that existed from
all eternity without having been produced by the auxiliary agencies
of nature, for it is asserted by the same authorities that the natives
were totally ignorant of the dignity and attributes of this supreme
divinity, whose manufactured name was Maui-rangi rangi, 1 which is in

1 This is evidently a name suggested by the missionaries, for it literally means
"the very heavenly Maui ; " Maui being the name of one of their hero-gods. Some
author that wished to startle the credulous reader with some new discovery asserts
even that this newly invented supreme god was known under the name of Jo, so as
to make it as nearly as possible synonymous with Jehovah or Jove. These are
simply puerilities that cannot deceive those that have the least critical acumen.
