eir natures radically changed by death and to hate those whom
they had loved in life.[77] And so powerful were these malignant beings
supposed to be that they were confused with the gods, or rather the
spirits of the dead became themselves gods to all intents and purposes,
and played a much more important part in the religious life of the
Maoris than the high primaeval deities, the personifications of nature,
who figured in Maori mythology and cosmogony.[78] The gods whom the
Maoris feared, we are told, were the spirits of the dead, who were
believed to be constantly watching over the living with jealous eyes,
lest they should neglect any part of the law relating to persons or
things subject to the sacred restriction called taboo (_tapu_). These
spirits, however, confined their care almost exclusively to persons
among the living with whom they were connected by ties of relationship,
so that every tribe and every family had its own worshipful ancestral
spirit or god, whom members of the tribe or family invoked with
appropriate prayers or spells (_karakias_). Ancestral spirits who lived
in the flesh before the Maoris emigrated to New Zealand were invoked by
all the tribes in New Zealand without distinction, so far as their names
and memories survived in tradition. Thus the worship of these remote
ancestors constituted what may be called the national religion of the
Maoris as distinguished from the tribal and family religions, which
consisted in the worship of nearer and better remembered progenitors.
The great importance attached by the Maoris to the worship of ancestors
may account, we are told, for the care with which they preserved their
genealogies; since the names of ancestors often formed the groundwork of
their religious formulas (_karakias_), and any error or even hesitation
in repeating these prayers or incantations was deemed fatal to their
efficacy.[79] "Ancestor worship, or rather the deification of
ancestors, was essentially a Maori cult. It was a form of necrolatry, or
hero worship. A man would placate the spirit of his father, grandfather,
or ancestor, and make offerings to the same, that such spirit might
protect his life principle, warn him of approaching danger, and give
force or effectiveness to his rites and charms of black or white
magic."[80]

[75] Elsdon Best, "Spiritual Concepts of the Maori," _Journal of
the Polynesian Society_, vol. ix. no. 4 (December 1900), p. 182.

[76] Elsdon Bes