WHAT A CENSUS COLLECTOR DISCOVERED.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 5 May 1911, Page 3

WHAT A CENSUS COLLECTOR DISCOVERED.

The Wairoa correspondent of the Napier Daily Telegraph supplies the following information which has reached him from a remote part of the Mohaka riding of the Wairoa County. There is not much "census humor," whatever that may exactly mean, in this incident. " .

A census collector, when engaged "numbering the people" at Runanga^ in Hillier's Valley, somewhere on the Napier-Taupo road, stumbled into a large hole out of which a tree was growing. Like Moses, of old, who turned aside to examine the burning bush, the census collector began to search, and this is what he found in a hole about eight or nine feet square. A tin trunk of the old fashioned square type. The trunk, the bottom of which was rusted away, was painted yellow, and near it lay the remains of two striped blankets, with fringes, also what looked like \

TWO. WOMEN'S BLOUSES. on« red, and the other a.deep blue. There was also found a calico' tent, so folded up that some of the overlaps were in a fairly good state of preservation, whilst, appropriately enough, near by, were some matai tent pegs. The remains of the leather handles of a portmanteau, and the iron binding with the Jock attached were disclosed, also a piece of board with handles on it, and "dished" on one of its^ sides, making it somewhat like what Maoris once used for kneading dough upon. So far the relics appeared merely to suggest the cache of some inland buccaneer., but a new aspect was opened •up by a discovery of a. pair of babies' leather boots very well preserved. Next came to light

A PAIR OF SKELETONS, evidently those of a ,young man and si young woman; then two skeletons of* younger people, and another of a baby —probably one time the owner of the boots. Still more skeletons! This time two of older people, apparently a man •and woman—seven skeletons in all, in a fairly good state of preservation, but the baby's skull split in half at me upper cranium suture on being touched. Some of these bones were sticking out of the earth, and some covered nearly a foot deep with earth •which had fallen from the sides of the PJ*-' The remains were surmised to be those of a whole family, though there may be others beneath, for the investigator was only armed with a tent peg for exploration purposes. It is significant that all the skulls were at one end of the hole, which was not unlike many similar ones Ao be found, all over that district. Some of the bones were white, and others further in the earth wsre brown, as if coated with some mixture that gave them thlat £olor.. I have,said that the remains seemed to be: tnose of ' A- WHOLE FAMILY whethet European or Maori I could not ascertain, but no Maori weapons, mats [ or-utensils were seen. It is conjectured that this may have been a family that hid in the hole for safety.at the time of r the Mohaka. massacre, but as, this event occurred as far back as 1869, the articles appeared too well preserved, for such a long period. Several Tarawera people who were spoken to regarding the gruesome "find" did not, seem to have heard about it before, but the Tarwera schoolmaster or postmaster—l forget which—admitted that two or three j-ears ago some telegraph linesmen working near the spot made the same discovery, but did not report the matter, fearing that these remains might be those of Maoris and that THE LAW OF TAPU might be put in operation against them. The modern articles suggest a tragedy, or a party that perished from privations, but the deeper buried bones suggest that the hole, was one of the" sacred burying places of tne Maoris. At any rate the discovery suggests inquiry.