52 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
A VISIT TO WEKA PASS ROCK-PAINTINGS.* 
ae ee EE 
BY W. M. MASKELL, ESQ. 
PART II, 
I believe that no apology is necessary for an attempt to throw 
light upon the origin of these curious paintings, nor do I think 
that any harm is likely to result from the addition of yet ano- 
ther theory to those already put forth. From the conflict of 
many opinions probability at least may be expected to emerge ; 
and if the aboriginal history of these islands is worth knowing at 
all, it deserves a thorough examination and conscientious enquiry 
from many points of view. I confess to a suspicion that in this 
matter, let theories be absurd or theories be probable, we shall 
never get beyond theory. In the absence of documents and 
records such as, for example, men put in the cavities of founda- 
tion stones of a building, nobody is ever likely to know for 
certain who executed the Weka Pass paintings, any more than 
we know who carved the Lion Gate of Mycene, or the palaces 
of Palenque. At the same time, no good purpose would appear 
to be served by leaving the question always in the ground, cir- 
cumscribed by a few suppositions, none of which seem to possess 
when fully examined the elements of probability. This being 
the case, I shall venture to suggest a theory of my own, which 
may or may not, as the event will show, have valid claims to 
credence. But it is requisite first to investigate the speculations 
already put forth. 
Of these speculations the only two which can be said to 
possess any scientific character at all are that of Professor von 
Haast in the 10th, and that of Mr. Mackenzie Cameron in the 
11th volumes of the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute. 
In the former the author inclines to the belief that the “ paint- 
ings” may be the work of some Oriental sailors, cast away in 
New Zealand, made slaves by the natives, and employing their 
leisure time in decorating the rocks; and the precise locality 
from which these sailors came is supposed to be Ceylon or 
Southern India. Mr. Mackenzie Cameron, on the other hand, 
considers them as the work of Buddhist missionaries who, starting 
from the north of India, have (according to him) propagated. 
their doctrines and symbols all over the continents of Europe 
and Asia, and may therefore (he says) be fairly believed to have 
evangelised New Zealand. 
It may at once be remarked that there is a main point of si- 
milarity between these two theories, namely that they both make 
out the “paintings” to be Oriental and Indian (whether southern 
or northern), 
* Continued from page 20, 
