The _ariki_ was hereditary chief priest as well as chief citizen, and was a man apart. His back was not bent, nor his hands gnarled with toil, his person was inviolable, his sanctity great, and he was all in all to his people. He helped and consoled them in time of trouble, read their fate in the stars, their future in a host of natural objects, and interpreted their dreams. On one day he saw visions and prophesied; on the next he was busy with the work of a Lord Lyon or Garter King-of-Arms, instructing the Master of the _Moko_ on behalf of some lusty warrior desirous of commemorating his own doughty deeds;[44] while he selected on a third a name for an infant, or presided at the obsequies of some notable chief or _rangatira_. In Maori mythology _Rangi_, Heaven, and _Papa_, Earth, long ago dwelt in happiness with their six children, but the brothers, with the exception of the god of winds and storms, rebelled against their parents, and cruelly dragged them apart. Yet their love remains unshaken, and Earth's sighs of longing, draped in clinging mist, every day ascend to Heaven; while Heaven's tears, a rain of refreshing dew, fall all night long upon Earth's sorrowful breast. Rangi and Papa were in part avenged. Their dutiful son, Tawhiri-ma-tea, rushed against the rebels, thunder rolling, lightning flashing, hailstones rattling and hurricanes raging in his van. Scared by this stupendous manifestation of wrathful force, Tangaroa hurled himself into the sea, Rongomatane and Haumiatikitiki buried themselves under the earth they had insulted, and Tane Mahuta called upon his forests to cover him. Only Tumatauenga, father of men and god of war, stood firm, scowling defiance at his brother of the storm. So has it been ever since, and Tawhiri-ma-tea, unable to overthrow his brother, continues to take a bitter vengeance upon the war-god's children. Men, whom he pursues on sea and land with tempest and tornado, ever seeking to slay and make an end. Under the collective name of _Atua_, the above were the principal gods of the Maori. Every tribe possessed an honoured _tohunga-whakairo_, or woodcarver; but the quaint finial figures upon the gables of their houses were not adored as gods, the Children of Maui never having been idolaters. The Maori looked forward to a future existence wherein their state and condition would remain very much as they had been in this world. A slave in life continued a slave after death, and, when a great chief died, several of his slaves were slain, that he might not go unattended among his fellow shades. The abodes of the departed were Rangi, occupied on different planes by gods and men of heroic type, and Reinga, under the sea at the extreme north of the North Island, where dwelt only the spirits of men.