24 Transactions. — Miscellaneous, 



mythical personages of other tribes. Speaking of skeletons 

 found in the Moa caves, &c, Dr. Von Haast notices that they 

 were all buried in a crouching position. It will be interesting 

 to read a few instances of comparison with the Maori usages 

 (known to us all) that occur in the work " Early Man in Britain," 

 describing tbe Neolithic men. " The dead were buried in these 

 tombs as they died, in a contracted or crouching posture. . . . 

 For purposes of defence, they constructed camps, with well- 

 engineered ramparts either of stone or earth, and fosses, some- 

 times as many as three or four ramparts being formed one above 

 the other. The ramparts probably bore palisades. . . . The 

 intercourse between the Neolithic tribes was greatly facili- 

 tated by tbe use of canoes, formed of the trunks of large trees, 

 hollowed partly by the action of fire, and partly by the axe, and 

 propelled by means of a broad paddle. ... A flint arrow- 

 head two inches long, and a ' wooden sword ' have also been 

 met with in the peat close by. . . . This kind of traffic 

 is proved to have extended over enormous distances in the 

 Neolithic age by the distribution of the axes made of nephrite or 

 jade, a material as yet unknown in its native state in Britain or 

 the Continent." 



With these quotations, I conclude. 



So many matters of interest grow up as one proceeds, so 

 many paths are seen along which one would like to tread, that 

 my great difficulty, in this article, has beeii to compress without 

 leaving some important matter unnoticed. Many offers of 

 kindly help are being made to me, and I feel sure that, before 

 many years have passed, we shall, by study of this subject, have 

 added to the scientific information of mankind, and written an 

 interesting chapter in the history of the Colony. 



Art. II. — On the Stone Weapons of the Motion and the Maori. 



By Professor Julius von Haast, C.M.G., Ph.D., F.K.S. 

 [Read before the Pliilozophical Institute of Canterbury, 26th Xorember, 1885. 



Plates I. and II. 



For some time past I have been waiting in vain for some one 

 more conversant with the history of the Morions, those ancient 

 inhabitants of the Chatham Islands, to describe fully their habits 

 and customs, to note down their folk-lore, going back many 

 generations, but chiefly to delineate the remains of their ancient 

 1 1 andicraft preserved to us in burial places and spots where their 

 dwellings were formerly situated. I was particularly anxious to 

 have some account of those curious stone implements, known to 

 us under the name of "patu" 



