Where The Ancients

Rest

Burial Caves in Eastern Polynesia

From Our Own Correspondent

Papeete, Feb. 3.

UNTIL very recent times, the ancient custom of depositing the bodies of the dead in hidden mountain caves, was not abandoned in Polynesia. The old people had the habit, too, of putting skulls here and there in rock crannies where people passing by could see them.

There was one such old skull in a niche beside the path leading from Papeete to Loti’s Pool, until hoodlums of the town destroyed it.

Some years ago, an acquaintance of the writer —who has explored many an out of-the-way corner in the interior of Tahiti—came upon a cave high up on a cliff and accessible only by way of an old tree which grew close to the rock wall. The walls of this cave were deco rated with skulls set in the several recesses, as is usual in most burial places of the kind. In the centre of the chamber was a couch made of Tou (a wood re sembling mahogany) and on this couch was the body of a handsome young woman. The body had been embalmed by the old method called Mirihia and re ceptacles lying about still retained the scent of the fragrant oils used in the operation.

Months afterward, when the explorer returned to the place, the tree had fallen and henceforth "the cave will remain in violate until the end of time.

The bodies of high chiefs are laid away in inaccessible caves high up in the mountains and the entrances are care-

fully concealed. Open caves, like the one in the accompanying photograph, are probably miscellaneous burial places of some clan.

The photographer, Frederick Simpson, chanced upon this cave while en route to a waterfall in the mountains of

Moorea. The fact that his Tahitian guide allowed himself to be photographed in such surroundings is clear evidence that this is not one of the tapu burial caves, the violation of which, in native belief, would be punished by a speedy and terrible death.

A burial cave high in the hills of Moorea.

—Photo by Simpson.