HANDY] THE POLYNESIAN PROBLEM 229
In all the groups there was found to be a sacred area, which was in front of, or around, the sacred place. The sacred place usually consisted of a mound, platform, or pyramid. A sacred enclosure was formed by surrounding this area with a fence or stone wall in all the groups concerning which we have information, viz., Hawaii, the Society group, the Marquesas (apparently only sometimes here), Easter island, Tonga, and New Zealand. 1
Within and without the sacred enclosure were sometimes one, sometimes a number of sacred houses used for different purposes: protecting the tomb, sacred relics, images or other representations of deity, paraphernalia; for housing priests; and so on.
Sacred groves were associated with places of burial and worship in Tonga, Samoa, the Society and Cook groups, the Marquesas, and New Zealand. 2 The fact that these sacred groves were not found in Hawaii may be due to environment. This would certainly be capable of explaining the lack of them in Easter island.
At the back of the sacred place in Hawaii, the Society group, the Marquesas, and the Cook group was a sacrifice pit into which remains of offerings were thrown. 3 A ditch at the back of the
��1 Hawaii: D. Malo, Hawaiian Antiquities, pp. 211-14. Honolulu, 1903. Society Group: Duff's Voyage, p. 304.
Marquesas: Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, "The Voyages of ... 1595 to 1606,"
The Hakluyt Society, Series II, vol. xiv, p. 60. London, 1804. H. Melville, Typee, p. 59. London, 1904. Easter Island: Don Felipe Gonzalez, "The Cruise of ... to Easter Island,"
1770-1771. The Hakluyt Society, Series n, No. xm, p. 136. Cambridge,
England, 1808.
Tonga: Duff's Voyage, pp. 278-9. New Zealand: S. Percy Smith, "The Lore of the Whare-wananga," etc., Memoirs
of the Polynesian Society, vol. in, p. 89. New Plymouth, N. Z., 1913. See also Taylor, loc. cit.
2 Tonga: Cook, op. cit., p. 419.
Samoa: G. Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 240. London, 1861.
Society Group: Ellis, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 341-2.
Cook Group: W. W. Gill, Historical Sketches of Savage Life in Polynesia, p. 195.
Wellington, 1880.
Marquesas: Melville, op. cit., p. 147. New Zealand: Taylor, op. cit., pp. 98-9.
3 Hawaii: Malo, op. cit., pp. 211-14.
Society Group: M. de Bovis, "Etat de la Societe Tahitienne a 1'Arrivee des Europeans," Revue Coloniale, 1855, pp. 44-7.
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