elled 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.

Yet once upon a time there was going and coming between earth and the
place of darkness, as the legend of the origin of the later style of
tattooing shows. Thus the story runs. The hero Mata-ora had to wife
the beautiful Niwa Reka. One day for some slight cause he struck her,
and, leaving him in anger, she fled to her father, who dwelt in the
Underworld. Thither followed the repentant Mata-ora. On his way he
asked the fan-tail bird whether it had seen a human being pass. Yes, a
woman had gone by downcast and sobbing. Holding on his way, Mata-ora
met his father-in-law, who, looking in his face, complained that he
was badly tattooed. Passing his hand over Mata-ora's face he wiped out
with his divine power the blue lines there, and then had him thrown
down on the ground and tattooed in a novel, more artistic and
exquisitely agonizing fashion. Mata-ora in his pain chanted a song
calling upon his wife's name. Report of this was carried to Niwa Reka,
and her heart was touched. She forgave her husband, and nursed him
through the fever caused by the tattooing. Happier than Orpheus and
Eurydice, the pair returned to earth and taught men to copy the
patterns punctured on Mata-ora's face. But, alas! in their joy they
forgot to pay to Ku Whata Whata, the mysterious janitor of Hades, Niwa
Reka's cloak as fee. So a message was sent up to them that henceforth
no man should be permitted to return to earth from the place of
darkness. In the age of the heroes not only the realms below but the
realms above could be reached by the daring. Hear the tale of Tawhaki,
the Maori Endymion! When young he became famous by many feats, among
others, by destroying the submarine stronghold of a race of sea-folk
who had carried off his mother. Into their abode he let a flood of
sunshine, and they, being children of the darkne