Mysterious Mummies.

Temuka Leader, Issue 3744, 25 May 1901, Page 3

Mysterious Mummies.

The following is from (lie Kawahai h'etticr;—“ At interval?, ever since tho early entry of Europeans into the harbour of ICawhi.i, occasional rumours have been heard of tho existence of catacombs containing mummies of a race unknown to tho Maoris. Recently two tourists from Auckland undertook tho difficult and somewhat perilous journey to tho limestone rooks near tho head of the Awavoa River, where tiio embalmed remains are said to repose in their secret sarcophagus. These explorers aver that with the assistance of a guide they succeeded in [Teaching several cavernous catacombs far up on a high cliif which they ascended with much difficulty and some little danger. lathe dark recesses of a cave into which they peered they beheld some mummified human remains swathed in much decayed vestments. Scattered locks of long black hair were on the heads of some, and some of the bodies, upon closer inspection proved almost \as complete as when laid away after death in the unknown past. These remains, it is said, are not held sacred by the Maoris ns with their own dead—there is no tapu over these vestiges of an extinct race. The reason why such tombs have remained so long unexplored is, doubtless, because of the difficulty of ascending a vertical cliff, on the face of which are the entrances to the tombs, hidden by such vegetation as clings to the least fissure or crevice in rooks of high altitude, and partially closed at the month by the debris of rock disintegration, the accumulation of time. It is said that the late Captain Fairchild always expressed a doubt as to the existence of these mummies, aud some of the oldest European residents here have shared in his disbelief ; but from tho necessarily superficial peep into the catacombs mentioned and what was then seen, there is sufficient warrant for further investigation.”