Te Po

Te Kore evolved through aeons into Te Po. Te Po also evolved through generations countless to man to the stage of Te Ata (the Dawn). From Te Ata evolved Te Aoturoa (familiar daytime) out of which in turn evolved Te Aomarama (com­prehended creation).

In the Maori conception the creation is a great kin unit, and thus is thought of as having a genealogical structure. The genealogy begins with Te Kore. In the dialect of the Maori on the street of Ruatoria, the article te has both negative and positive meaning, rendering Te Kore as an ambiguous name or title. Te Kore can mean either ‘The Nothing’ or ‘Not The Nothing’, and in the Maori’s thinking ambiguity is a trait of the super­being and superior things. For reasons I have been unable to ascertain, Te Kore is hardly mentioned, and the common reference is instead to Te Po. The tohunga Arnold Reedy when asked what Te Po was, replied: ‘The never­ending beginning.’

Te Po is not thought of as object, or as context. It is said that Te Po is oneness, meaning among other things that Te Po is both object and context.

The employment of the genealogical framework means that to reach Te Po would take a journey in mind, and a return in spirit to former times. During such former times the awareness of our pre-human ancestors operated at the intuitive level only. The situation is sometimes likened to that of a person who is in the grip of sleep, and in that unconscious­ness nevertheless senses that although it is night now, dawn is at hand.

Reproduction occurs at the intuitive level. Te Po logically would be the forebear of the Maori on the street in Ruatoria. However the Maori has a strong impression that Te Po is not subject to logic, that Te Po is remote not only on account of the lapse of time but probably more importantly on account of magnitude. It is such as to appear to him to render it fanciful and perhaps even dangerous for him to contemplate Te Po as one of his pre-human ancestors. (The danger is not from Te Po whose magnitude and remoteness put in doubt an interest by Te Po in earthly activities and their performers. An assertion as to genealogical connection has the effect of boosting one spiritually, the boost being dependent on the spiritual level of the one being connected to genealogically. The danger is that at higher spiritual levels, different laws of nature operate and may not necessarily contribute to human survival.)

While Te Po is recognised as a superhuman control­ling power, Te Po is not invoked as are some younger superhuman control­ling powers. As far as the Maori is concerned the controlling power of Te Po is indirect, controlling those superpowers to whom we can relate directly.