vv._ "Reinga" and "Waiora";
John White, "A Chapter from Maori Mythology," _Report of the
Third Meeting of the Australasian Association for the
Advancement of Science, held at Christchurch, New Zealand,
in January 1891_, pp. 361 _sq._

On the day after a burial the priest used to perform a ceremony to
facilitate the passage of the soul to its final rest. For this purpose
some men would go out in the morning and kill a small bird of the swamps
called _kokata_ and pluck up some reeds of a certain sort (_wiwi_).
These they brought to the priest at the grave. He asked them, "Whence
came ye?" They answered, "From the seeking, from the searching." He
asked them again, "Ah! what have you got? ah! what have you gained?"
Then the men threw the bird and the reeds on the ground. Next the priest
chose a stalk of grass or fern and put it near the grave in a direction
pointing towards Hawaiki, the land far away from which the forefathers
of the Maoris came long ago. Another stalk of grass or fern was laid
near the place of death, and along these stalks the soul of the dead man
travelled to rejoin his friends and kinsfolk who had gone before.[69]

[69] E. Shortland, _Maori Religion and Mythology_, p. 44. Such
a stalk to aid the spirit on its passage was called a _tiri_.
Compare E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_,
p. 517, _s.v._ "Tiri." The ceremony described in the text
resembles in some points the one which seems intended to raise
the soul of the deceased to heaven. See above, p. 25.

As might be anticipated, the accounts which the Maoris gave of the
spirit world and of life in it were neither clear nor consistent.
According to one account, while the heavens increase in beauty as they
ascend one above the other, the lower regions increase in darkness and
horror as they descend, each being darker and worse than the one above
it, till in the lowest of all complete darkness reigns. There the souls,
deprived alike of light and food, wasted away and ultimately ceased to
exist; or according to another account they assumed the shape of worms
and in that guise returned to earth, where they died a second death and
so finally perished. But it was only the souls of common folk which came
to this melancholy end. Chiefs and priests were believed to be descended
from the gods, and at death their souls ascended to heaven, there to
live for ever.[70]

[70] R. Taylor, _Te Ika A Maui_,