CAVES AND MUMMIES AT KAWHIA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 5016, 13 December 1877, Page 2

CAVES AND MUMMIES AT KAWHIA.

A correspondent writes aa follows :— Heading in your paper lately about oaves in New Zealand, brought,to mind a story I -was told a few years ago about one in Kawhia. Thinking it might interest some of your readers. I semi it to you as I got it* myself. It appears while my informant was pig-hunting, he saw a hole in the face of a cliff, and never having heard of any caves thereabout, he at once went "to see what it was. The only way to get at it was by cliinbiug a tree, some thirty feet, and creeping along a limb to the hole. After getting in, great was his surprise to find himself in a large square chamber; and at one end were some six or seveu mummies ; all of them save one were l--trge. They were not tatooed, and to all appearance were those of Maoris. On his return he told the natives, who had never heard of it until then. They further stated that there were more of their people (Ngatimaniapoto) buried about there than they knew of. The Taranaki natives cannot throw any lig.ht on the subject cither, and these were the former owners of Kawhia. There aie only two or three white men who have ever seen the caves and mummies, one of whom lives in Gnchunga at present, who I was told possesses a small curio from there.