440 Transactions. 



as a common habit we must turn to Fiji, in the Melanesian area. It is 

 fairly clear that the Maori did not bring this shocking custom in any 

 excessive form with him to New Zealand. Did he borrow it from Maruiwi ? 

 Tradition shows that the aborigines were of a lower plane of culture than 

 that on which the Maori stood. The Maori immigrants took large numbers 

 of Maruiwi women, first as gifts, afterwards by force : such a wholesale 

 system of intermarriage must have had some effect on the culture and 

 customs of the intruding people. Knowing as we do the effect of such 

 a crossing of peoples, does it not appear probable that some of the Maruiwi 

 customs were followed by the mixed folk that succeeded them ? Was 

 cannibalism as a common custom so acquired by the Maori ? The dreadful 

 Maori custom — or, at least, occasional habit — of hai pirau was also a Fijian 

 custom — the exhuming and eating of buried human bodies. 



Human Sacrifice. 



We are aware that the practice of human sacrifice was followed in 

 eastern Polynesia, and probably the Maori brought it with him to New 

 Zealand. There is, however, some evidence to show that in former times 

 two singular examples of this custom obtained here that we cannot trace 

 to the former home of the Maori : these were the burial of human beings 

 at the bases of the main forts of the stockade of a jja, or fortified village, 

 and also at the bases of posts supporting a house. There are several 

 allusions to the latter custom in Maori tradition ; and, curiously enough, 

 there is proof that in many cases some other object — such as a bird, a 

 lizard, or a stone — was so buried, the human sacrifice being omitted. It 

 would be interesting to know whether or not the depositing of a stone, &c., 

 was the more modern custom, such objects serving as substitutes for a 

 human sacrifice. Or were both forms of the ceremony practised during 

 the same period ? There is a certain amount of evidence to show that 

 such sacrifices at the completion of a new fort or superior house, and per- 

 haps also of a new canoe of the larger type, were practised at one time, 

 but that in later times they became much less frequent, if, indeed, they did 

 not entirely cease in some districts. Again, the custom of human sacrifice, 

 or at least of slaying a person, at a certain ceremonial performed over 

 'the first-born child of a family of high rank does not seem to have been 

 practised by the Takitumu tribes, as it was among some others. 



The allusions in tradition to the burial of a human being at the base 

 of a house-post are but few, and there is no record, so far as the writer is 

 aware, of such an occurrence in late generations. One case, in which the 

 mother of a child so sacrificed was a Maruiwi woman, hence probably a 

 slave wife, occurred about two hundred and fifty years ago. Although 

 Maori tradition says little about this custom, we do know that in Fiji the 

 burial of human beings at the bases of house-posts was a custom of the 

 natives. 



In regard to the burial of human beings at the bases of stockade-posts, 

 we know of no tradition concerning this custom, and no old natives 

 questioned on the subject know anything about it. We have, however, 

 some very direct evidence in the fact that the remains of such sacrifices 

 have been found in one locality. The Tawhiti-nui pa, or fort, at Opotiki 

 is said by natives of the district to be a very old one. It was occupied 

 by members of the Toi tribes (a mixed Maori-Maruiwi folk) when the last 

 Maori iromigrants arrived here from Polynesia some twenty generations — 

 or, say, five hundred years — ago. All signs of stockades have long since 



