128 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



mode of burial. He says, " In some instances the corpses 

 were placed upright between young trees and then firmly 

 bound round with vines, and in course of time they became 

 embedded in the wood itself. Sometimes they were placed in 

 hollow trees. Several skeletons have lately been discovered 

 by Europeans in trees which they were cutting up for fire- 

 wood, &c. In other cases the corpses were placed on small 

 rafts constructed of the dry flower-stems of the flax. Water, 

 food, fishing-lines, &c, were then placed by them, and they 

 were set adrift and carried out to sea by the land breeze. 

 Not long ago an American whaler discovered one of these 

 rafts with a corpse seated in the stern many miles from land. 

 Not knowing that it had been set adrift purposely, the cap- 

 tain had a rope attached to it and towed it into Whangaroa 

 Harbour, much to the annoyance of the natives." Mr. Man- 

 makes no mention of burial as a mode of disposing of the 

 dead. 



In considering the funeral customs of the Morioris we 

 must certainly take into account the extraordinary tree- 

 carvings so abundant in some parts of the island. It is 

 remarkable how little attention these carvings have hitherto 

 excited. A good painting of some of them, by Miss Stoddart, 

 may, however, be seen in the Canterbury Museum, which has 

 also, since my visit to the island, acquired three actual speci- 

 mens. Mr. Travers also, in his extremely interesting paper 

 on the "Traditions and Customs of the Morioris,"* gives 

 illustrations of some of these figures, which he explains as 

 follows : "Their quarrels appear to have arisen chiefly out of 

 conflicting claims to the possession of valuable karaka-trees, 

 the fruit of which was a staple and much-liked article of food, 

 and my son informs me that nearly all the older karaka-trees 

 on the island are marked with devices indicating their special 

 ownership — a fact of very great interest. He made drawings 

 of many of these figures, which are very rude, but were 

 evidently sufficient for the purposes of the owners." 



I myself took the opportunity when on the island of making 

 a number of sketches of these tree-carvings, which are repro- 

 duced in the accompanying plate (Plate V., figs. 1-4). They 

 are commonly about 3 ft. in total height, and those which 

 I saw, as well as those in the Canterbury Museum, those 

 drawn by Miss Stoddart, and some of those figured by 

 Mr. Travers, are evidently intended to represent the human 

 skeleton in the sitting attitude. The elbows are represented 

 pointing downwards and the knees upwards, and some of 

 them have unmistakable ribs (figs. 3, 4). The head is 

 commonly represented with a curious cleft on top (figs. 1-3), 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. ix., p. 25. 



