32 
THE TWO RACES WHICH PEOPLED POLYNESIA. 
priests, as was supposed some where on the Horapore range.* 
It is therefore highly probable that the statue which was 
disinterred by the priests for the Governor to see, was this 
identical one of the Itupaoa, which, doubtless, from its size 
and weight, could not be easily carried to any distance, 
especially when the surrounding country was already in the 
enemy’s hands, therefore its custodians would naturally bury 
it on the spot, and there it remained for forty-three years, 
until the Governor’s visit, which was the signal for its 
hahunga or disinterment. 
The poor old priests not content with showing the Go- 
vernor the statue, likewise took him to the spot where 
Tuorangi, the great Rotorua giant was interred; there also 
removing a little soil, they disclosed a stone coffer or cist, 
eight and a half feet long, formed by flagstones, with a cover 
of the same, which had sloping sides like the roof of a house, 
with the ridge on the top curiously sculptured. Until a 
few years ago, there were sculptured stones remaining 
which marked the boundaries of the Mara or Kumara ground 
of Turi at Patea, and these being regarded as idols by a 
Wesleyan catechist stationed there, were therefore broken 
in pieces. 
This discovery must be regarded as a highly interesting 
one, and the fact of such antique remains still existing of a 
period when the Maori race must have been in a far more 
advanced state than they are now, as relates to the arts 
of civilized life, is a proof of a retrograde state from a 
higher one. 
New Zealand is to be regarded as the utmost limit to 
which the Polynesian race reached. Whether the remains 
referred to belong to it entirely or not, there are sufficient 
which certainly tend to prove the intimate connection be- 
tween it, and the inhabitants of the western coasts of Ame- 
rica. The resemblance of the Marae in their pyramidical 
form and massive structure to the Teocalli is too striking to 
be doubted; nor is that confined to the worshipping on 
“ high places.” Grove worship is co-extensive with the 
* White’s Lecture’s on Maori Customs. 
