HANDY] THE POLYNESIAN PROBLEM 227
I
The places of burial of sacred chiefs were places of public worship in Hawaii, the Society islands, the Marquesas, Tonga, and New Zealand. Information regarding this is lacking in the Cook group. In Easter island worship seems to have been conducted before the great image platforms which were used for burial. From Samoa evidence which would indicate that chiefs' tombs were places of public worship is lacking. 1
In historic times it appears that places of public worship, or temples, were frequently, though not always, used for burial pur- poses.
It is believed that the prototype of the stone tomb and temple forms of Hawaii, the Society group, the Marquesas, and Easter island was a tomb form. The rudimentary type of this tomb-temple is probably to be found in the tombs of the kings in Tonga, con- sisting of superimposed earth platforms faced with stone blocks. 2 These platforms may have originated in the simple earth mound used here for burial in historic times, or this earth mound may have represented a degeneration from a stone tomb.
The following temple and tomb forms, derived from this Tongan prototype, were found in those island groups which utilized stone construction, and concerning which we have adequate information.
1 See tor Hawaii: W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. iv, pp. 164-6, London, 1853.
James Cook, The Three Voyages of Captain James Cook Round the World,
pp. 882-3. London, 1842. Society Group: Cook, op. cit., p. 771.
Sir Joseph Banks, Journal of the Right Honorable, etc., p. 175. London, 1896.
J. A. Moorenhout, Voyages aux lies du Grand Ocean, vol. I, p. 470. Paris, 1837.
Marquesas: A. Baessler, "Reise in ostlichen Polynesien," V ' erhandlungen der
Berliner Gesellschaft fur Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte, 1896,
p. 464. Tonga: W. Mariner, An Account of the Natives of The Tonga Islands in the Pacific
Ocean, compiled by John Martin, pp. 385-387. New Zealand: R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui\ or, New Zealand and its Inhabitants ,
pp. 98-9, 174, 183, 208. London and New Zealand, 1870. Easter Island: Paymaster W. T. Thompson, "Te Pito Henua, or Easter Island,"
in Report of the U. S. National Museum for the year ending June 30, 1889
(published 1891), pp. 470-1, 499.
2 A Missionary Voyage to the South Pacific Ocean . . . in the Ship Duff, etc., pp. 278-9. London, 1799.
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