WAITAKI “MYSTERY” STONE

Evening Star, Issue 22722, 9 August 1937, Page 6

WAITAKI “MYSTERY” STONE

REBURIED BY LOCAL MAORIS CONSIDERED VERY SACRED Some months ago there appeared in these columns an article on the “ Mystery Stone of Waitaki,” and more recently a photograph was reproduced showing the stone together with discoverer (Mr J. B. Chaipman). Today the “Mystery” stone has disappeared from the gaze of the curious; it lias been reburied by the Maoris of the district. The stone was discovered in 1934 by three men, who were engaged at the time in poisoning-rabbits with cynogas. At first some difficulty was experienced in unearthing the huge block of stone (eventually it was found to . weigh 30cwt), but the efforts of the men were at last rewarded for it to be exposed to the light of day. When laid bare the stone was seen to be roughly rectangular, with an uneven surface; much more irregular than any of the stone lying thickly on the land in many places in the vicinity. The land is ■ a very old river bed—many thousands of years old—and the water-borne stone is all greywacke (greystone), with a smooth, water-worn surface, similar to that found in all parts of the Waitaki. It is also very hard and compact. The mystery stone is not hard, nor is it water-worn smooth; it is soft, friable, and porous, with fragments of shell embedded here and there in its mass. The stone is whitish grey in colour, and closely resembles a type of sandstone that is to be found near Duntroon—about 25 miles from where the stone was found. The fact that no similar stone has been found in this part of the district, and that the Maoris have always looked upon it as being tapu, lends colour to the theory that this mass of sandstone is a mystery stone. Now the mystery has been deepened by the fact that a party of Maoris armed with primitive spades and other implements invaded the precincts of the land whereon the stone stood and buried it in the resting place it had occupied,' before being disturbed by. the white man, for many hundreds of years. It is difficult to assess just how long the stone was buried at Waitaki, hut in the, light of the theory expounded in the previous article, it is safe to assume that the mystery stone reposed on the one particular spot from the time of the Morioris. - ' *

No European implements were. used in the reburial of the stone. The Maoris saw to it that the tools were of their own manufacture, for they regarded the stone as being sacred in Maori eyes. Residents of the district have been unable to ascertain why the Maoris buried the mass, other than the fact that the stone is regarded by them_ as being tajpu and the land whereon it stood as holy land. They consider that the removal of the stone from its former resting place desecrated the place.