Maori Religion

Johannes Andersen's essay on Maori Religion, while hardly the final word on the subject, is valuable as a glimpse into the window of a whare-wananga by a well-disposed outsider. As Andersen was at pains to point out, the religion of the pre-European Maori must remain to some extent mysterious to later generations of New Zealanders, including many of Maori ancestry, because of the secrecy which always surrounded it, but most especially because of its vilification and vigorous destruction by Christian missionaries. Andersen, writing when Christianity had a much greater hold over New Zealanders than is now the case, seemed to be arguing more for an assimilation of the ancient religion than its reinstatement; whether either move is appropriate for today we leave to the individual reader.