SPIRIT PLACES.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15979, 6 May 1924, Page 9

SPIRIT PLACES.

WHISPERINGS IN THE NIGHT. HAUNTED TREES AND ROCKS. Dotted all over Rarotonga and other Eastern Pacific Islands, as w r ell as New Zealand, are what are known as “Spirit Places.’ Generally a grove of trees or a particular rock, they arc held in very deep awe and reverence by the natives, who (writes Wynfrith Roveli in the Sydney Sun) • believe them to be the assembly and jumpingoff places for spirits on the way to eternity. Several years ago, when engaged . in developing a Rarotongan plantation, I erected my camp in a grove of. toa, or iron wood, trees several miles outside the village of Arorangi. To my mind it was an ideal location. The trees grew just above high-water mark, and a belt of dense scrub protected the site from south-east trades. At high tide the water lapped the roots of the scrub. Timi, my buggy boy, expressed the utmost horror when I announced that I meant to camp there. “Him spirit place!” he confided, not auite sure whether I was in earnest or merely joking. “Well, what of that. Timi?” “Bad spirit come. You be found dead one morning.” In vain he pleaded with me to return to his home in the village. I was stubborn and all tiis bloodcurdling predictions only made me more determined. Tho Dog Alarmed. It was 10 o’clock whin I rolled into my blankets, and li, a few minutes I was asleep. Not until my dog started growling viciously did I awake. He stood in the tent opening, his back a-bristlc. staring inlo the night, snarling deeply and fiercely. With great reluctance be obeyed my order to lie down. On the second night, at the same hour, he, ana.in awakened me. , This lime, gripping my revolver, I searched beach and scrub thoroughly. All the while the dog followed close at my heels, still growling and snarling, but search as I would, I could not discover what caused him to he so uneasy. My camp was as I had left it. and although I closely examined everything on my return nothing had been touched or in any way interfered with. I remained camped in the toa grove for several weeks, and was awakened every night by my growling dog. I could always hear a peculiar whispering, as though many thousand voices were speaking softly to one another. This was probably caused by tho breaking of tho ripples on me beach being echoed into the scrub and then being refracted by the scrub info the ironwood trees. But this sound was audible throughout the night; it was only between midnight and 2 o'clock that my dog was disturbed. A somewhat similar experience befell me in New Zealand a couple of years later. I was a member of a ideological survey party working in the South Island. There were three of us—the cook. Gordon, once a guide on the'famous Tc Anau track, and myself—and we were in lilllc-known sparsely populated country. Wc had with us a collie named Floss. A Nervous Wreck. Our tents were pitched in a clearing on the southern hank of the Jlcaphy or Whakapoai, and dense native bush surrounded us. An old wharc or hut served us as a messroom. One fine, calm evening, about an hour after dark, Gordon and I were reading, when Floss, facing the river, began to whine and growl and backed under tho flooring of the whare, as though afraid of something. She refused to come but, although we coaxed and swore for over an hour. Every night at about the same time Floss would act in a similar manner, and although we thoroughly searched the vicinity we were never able to discover any cause for the dog’s alarm. Then we ran suddenly out of stores. ; Gordon and I set out for Kuramea, lying. 20 miles to the south, while the conk and Floss remained to look after the camp. When we returned after two days’ absence we found the cook almost a nervous wreck. He explained that while we were .. away Floss had whined and growled most of every night, and her growls had thoroughly unnerved him. When we finally left the Hoaphy we were more like lunatics than sane men. Years later I learnt that near the river mouth stood the ruins of an old Maori pa and that the clearing was a spirit place.