356 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



or hanging on a tree an entire cocoanut-leaf plaited after a. 

 fashion supposed to represent the proprietor clutching the 

 soil. All plants attached to that cocoanut-leaf become sacred. 

 This is called a rdui." 



In the "Journal of the Polynesian Society," vol. iii., 

 p. 159, an account is given of the house of Keawe by Pro- 

 fessor W. D. Alexander. This was a cenotaph or mausoleum 

 for the deceased kings of Hawaii: "At the building of this 

 hale (Maori, whare) Mr. Chamberlain writes, ' At the setting 

 of every post, and the placing of every rafter, and at the 

 thatching of every toa (or intervening space) a human sacrifice 

 had been offered.' Human sacrifices had also been offered for 

 each chief whose remains were deposited there — at each stage 

 of the consecration — viz., at the removal of the flesh, at the 

 putting-up of the bones, at the putting-on of the ta2)a (native 

 cloth), at the winding-on of the sennit, &c. Mr. Chamber- 

 lain made a list of the names of twenty-three chiefs whose 

 bones were removed in 1829 and deposited in a secret cave- 

 at Kaawa-loa, where they remained for nearly thirty years." 



Here we have a small army of unfortunates who were 

 killed — First, those whose deaths should insure the stability 

 and tajyic of posts and rafters, &c. ; secondly, one to accom- 

 pany each of the twenty-three chiefs or rulers ; and a further 

 multitude for each bone-scraping and other ceremonies 

 enforced by this hideous custom as each of the twenty-three 

 bodies were from time to time prepared for their long rest. 



In vol. iv., p. 37, of the same journal Mr. Alexander 

 Shand tells us that in the time of Eongo-papa, of the Chat- 

 ham Islands, a heke, or migration, arrived there in the 

 "Rangimata" canoe: "At Te Awapatiki the captain of 

 " Rangimata," named Mihiti, and his people erected a post — 

 first on tahuna (the sand-spit). This the tangata u-henua 

 (people of the country) took no notice of, but on seeing the 

 heke put in another at Poretu (north side of the Awapatiki), 

 and with it the image of their god Heuoro, they pulled them 

 up." These posts were erected as indicating a taking- 

 possession of the land — a titiri, or erecting the sacred mark 

 of rah id. 



To my thinking, it may be of interest if the two pedigrees 

 of the Chatham Island natives (the Moriori) were studied by an 

 expert in Polynesian languages, for I feel partly satisfied that 

 some of the names given therein possibly relate to some deed 

 or action ; others to place-names touched at in migration ; 

 and later on to actual personal names. 



At page 122 of the journal we read : " With Ro Tauira 

 the children of heaven and earth separate to the world of 

 existence; Te-ao-marama (World of Light) came forth, whose 

 son was Rongo-mai-whenua (this was the ancestor who first 



