192 Transactions. 



In the above song (lament) will be noted a reference to the 

 contest between Maui and Hine-nui-te-Po. The whare papa 

 mentioned is an allusion to the coffin in which the body of Tama 

 was placed. The expression " mahuri totara " (totara sapling) is 

 one of many such often applied to young people recently dead. 

 It often appears in laments. It likens the lost one to a young 

 totara tree, a tree highly prized by the Maori. 



In some cases the dead were placed in hollow trees, the body 

 being wrapped up in a cloak. We have seen that the Ngai- 

 Tama clan disposed of their dead by placing the bodies in or on 

 trees. Other clans also did the same, but the system usuallv 

 followed was that of burying bodies in the earth, or placing them 

 on a stage, and then, when the halmnga or disinterment took 

 place, the bones were deposited in a cave or chasm, or rock 

 shelter, or in a hollow tree, or among the parasitic plants which 

 grow on the branches of forest-trees. The puJcatea tree, which 

 when it attains a large size is generally hollow, is often used as 

 a last resting-place for the bones of the dead in Tuhoeland. 

 There are many such burial-trees at Rua-toki, one of which 

 stands within 2 chains of my present camp at Hau-Kapua. 

 While exploring the gulch one day I espied several skulls at the 

 base of a pukatea tree, and thought that I might have some trouble 

 with the local Natives for camping at a tapu spot. I quickly 

 found out, however, that there was no need for uneasiness, as the 

 Natives were quite ignorant of the place as a burial-ground, and 

 denied that the remains were those of any of their people. They 

 advanced the opinion that the bones were a toenga — that is, 

 the bones of bodies that had been eaten in former times. It 

 is, however, highly improbable that the bones of a body that had 

 been eaten would have been treated with such respect, Rather 

 would they have been simply thrown out on the kitchen- 

 midden of the settlement, On the spur immediately above the 

 burial-tree stand the earthworks of two old Native forts — Hau- 

 Kapua and Titoko-rangi. The remains, I opine, are either those 

 of plebeians, of whom but little notice was taken, or they belong 

 to some other tribe. The last supposition is probable, inasmuch 

 as Rua-toki is not ancestral land of the Tuhoe Tribe, but was 

 gained by conquest, and Tuhoe have several times been driven 

 off the land. 



In placing bones of the dead in a hollow tree they were some- 

 times inserted at the base of the tree, should an opening there 

 exist. If not, one was often found up the trunk of the tree, 

 sometimes 40 ft. or 50 ft. from the ground. In such cases the 

 bones would be carried up, thrust into the hole, and allowed 

 to fall down inside the tree. Some of these trees contain 

 great quantities of human remains. In one that fell and split 



