ANCIENT BURIAL.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVI, Issue 107, 2 November 1908, Page 7

ANCIENT BURIAL.

RESTING PLACES OF THE MAORI. INTERESTING RITES. [By Telegbai>h. — Special to Tiie Post.] AUCKLAND, This Day. The interesting discovery of a cave with human lemains in it at Mount Roskill points to the disturbance of another Maori burying place. The fact is that the old lava streams of the Auckland isthmus are full of caves, which were used in former times, before the arrival of the white man in New Zealand, as Maori burial places. Hardly any lava streams of any size are without caves, the latter having been formed while tKe lava streams were cooling. It has been estimated that between the Penrose railway station and. Mount Wellington there are probably a hundred of these lava caves. In many of them human bones have been found. From information supplied by the curator of the Auckland Museum (Mr. Cheeseman) and others interested in scientific research, it appears, says the Herald, that these' discoveries are of very little scientific value. It is a well-known fact that the Maoris used caves as final burial places. After various forms of interment, the remains were taken up_ by the living, and the ceremony ot" "hahunga," or bqne scraping, was gone through. The exhumed bones were carefully scraped till they were as white as possible, and then they were placed by the tohunga of the tribe in a cave. The c-aves used for this purpose were generally chosen for their secluded position, and then closed up after the bones were deposited, "^ot infrequently only the tohungas knew the exact position of the caves. The Auckland isthmus maintained a large Maori population in bygone days, and there is nothing re markable in these occasional discoveries of burial places. At the Three Kings, for instance, many caves found in former years were full of skeletons. The recent discovery of a Maori skeleton with a blunderbuss alongside of it points to the ceremony of "tapu." This probably dates back to the period when blunderbusses were first introduced among ' the Maoris. They would then be naturally regarded as of great value, and when a chief died v his .blunderbuss would be "tapu," and ■would be buried with him. A peculiar fact is that rarely do these caves contain any picture writing such as is frequently found in Australian caves. In aboriginal districts there have been a few instances of Maori picture writing or scroll writing having been found on the face of a cliff in sheltered places, but such inscriptions are very rarely found in burial places. ''