ANCIENT MAORI CAVE.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19851, 12 February 1930, Page 9

ANCIENT MAORI CAVE.

INTERESTING DISCOVERY IN WAIKATO. [THE FBESS Special Service.] AUCKLAND, February 11. . A cave formerly used by the Maoris as a place of refuge has been discovered on the banks of the Waikato river, below Aratiatia rapids. Named Ruahoata, the cave was well known to the chiefs of Ngatitahuhapu some generations ago as a place of refuge ana also a sort of hunting lodge for wild ducks, fish, and other food, but it is not known to the younger generation except by hearsay. Recently a Maori rabbiter named Tukai Rangi was working near the ancient track which led into the UreWera Country. His dog chased a rabbit down a cliff into the cave and could not climb back. Tukai heard the dog yelping and got down with great difficulty and helped it up. Arrangements were made for Mr Henry Hill, F.G.S.. of Napier, to examine the cave. An exploring party headed by Mr Hill comprised Messrs Ralph Ward and George Stubbs, all members of the Philosophical Society, and Tukai as guide; They travelled j about 11 miles from Taupo by car and then walked through scrub for about ! a mile and a half to the right bank of the Waikato river. The most interesting feature of the cave is the number of carvings on its walls. The party counted 19 carvings of canoes, extending from near the entrance down towards the back. The longest carving would be about eight feet and contains a number of characters, some of which resemble English letters. There are also a couple of tikis carved about 18 inches long and rather well done. One of the carvings showed an outrigger canoe such as those in use in New Zealand more than 100 years ago for a sea voyage. The whole cave is covered with the usual moss which grows on pumice tufa. At some period of the cave's occupation its refugees or hunters had lit a fire, for the searchers found fire sticks, now decayed, which were in use before the advent of matches. They also found rotten flax kits of closer mesh than those now made, and some roasted fern and raupo root, which had evidently formed part of a meal. Other relics noticed were bones of a pig, a rat, and a bird, a fragment of a flax fishing net for kokopus (the Waikato river formerly contained this and other small fish), a fragment of a flax sleeping mat, and some shells of salt and fresh fish—the sea shells had probably been taken there to scrape kumaras, fern root, etc. —and some kokowai volcanic red clay used by chiefs to ornament their faces and sometimes as a protection against sunburn. Probably the cave was last occupied about 60 years ago. The Natives say it was four or five generations ago.