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Updated: June 9, 2025
Etua, often spelled Atua, was the name of divinity among all Maori peoples, but religion was so associated with natural things, the phenomena of nature, of living things, and of the heavens and sea, that it was part of daily life and needed no word to distinguish it. Never were people less able to comprehend the creeds and formulas in which the religious beliefs of the white men are clothed.
The assumption of the Atua name spread discontent in that province; many chiefs from thence were convicted of disaffection, and condemned to labour with their hands upon the roads a great shock to the Samoan sense of the becoming, which was rendered the more sensible by the death of one of the number at his task. Mataafa was involved in the same trouble.
There is a rising ground there called Taape, or "Dispersion," which is said to have been the place where a party broke up and dispersed after a visit to the heavens. There were five Atua men and four belonging to Aana. As soon as they got up to the skies the people of the god Tangaloa laid a plot to kill them.
His disaffected speech at a meeting of Atua chiefs was betrayed by the girls that made the kava, and the man of the future was called to Apia on safe-conduct, but, after an interview, suffered to return to his lair. The peculiarly tender treatment of Mataafa must be explained by his relationship to Tamasese. Laupepa was of Malietoa blood.
The article te often stands before proper names; also before God, Te Atua; sometimes o, which then appears to be an article; as, O Pomare, O Huaheine, O Tahaiti. Sometimes this o is placed before the personal pronouns in the nominative case. O vau, I; o oe, thou; o oia, she, he, it. In these pronouns the Tahaitian, and those languages to which it bears affinity, are particularly rich.
When Pili was old and dying he called his children together and appointed them their places and employments. To Tua, the eldest, he gave the plantation dibble, as the business of agriculture, and the eastern division of Upolu now called Atua.
The reason of this is, because I do not desire that the blood of Samoa shall be spilt for me again. But I do not know what is my offence which has caused their anger to me and to my country." And then, apostrophising the different provinces: "Tuamasanga, farewell! Manono and family, farewell! So, also, Salafai, Tutuila, Aana, and Atua, farewell!
Tamasese women and children were marched up the same day from Atua, and handed over with their sleeping-mats to Mulinuu: a most unwelcome addition to a party already suffering from want. By the 20th, they were being watered from the Adler.
He married a chief's daughter, and became a Maori in all respects except colour. He was captured by Captain Edwardson, of the "Snapper," and was taken to Sydney, where he seems to have paraded as a savage chief. The New Zealanders, according to Rutherford, have neither priests, nor places of worship, nor any religion except their superstitious dread of the Atua.
The Pakeha Maori was present at this seance, and heard the 'hollow, mysterious whistling Voice, "The ship's nose I will batter out on the great sea". Even the priest was puzzled, this, he said, was clearly a deceitful spirit, or atua, like those of which Porphyry complains, like most of them in fact. It is hardly surprising that some Europeans used to consult the oracle.
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