Myths Concerning Lizards
In many lands we find that strange beliefs are, or have been, held concerning the lizard, that it enters into many myths and superstitions. The Maori of New Zealand and his kinsmen in
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northern isles are well to the front as upholders of these singular beliefs. Generally speaking lizards were dreaded by all Polynesians, and the Maori carried this feeling to the extent of attributing misfortune, calamities, death, to lizards. One explanation of this belief is that the lizard represents Whiro, and Whiro personifies darkness and death; a Maori belief was that evil spirits in lizard form entered bodies of men and consumed their vitals, so causing death. When an expert was called in to treat the case he would pose as an exorcist and expel the malignant spirit from the body of the sufferer. Curiously enough the Maori dread of lizards did not always extend to the tuatara, the largest species thereof, for it was an article of food in pre-European times; this custom may not have been universal but it was certainly widespread. At the same time I have seen natives who appeared horrified at the sight of a tuatara. Some time ago, about 1912, two Maori, an old man and a young one, came into the Dominion Museum, and, ere long, came to a glass case in which were several living tuatara. The old man uttered an exclamation betraying horror, and hurriedly left the building though the young man appeared to be in no way perturbed.