CHAPTER III.
THE MAORI AND THE UNSEEN "Dreaming caves Full of the groping of bewildered waves." 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.