Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 22.djvu/242

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230 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST [N. s., 22, 1920

tomb of a Tongan chief, which is described by Cook, probably corresponds to this sacrifice pit elsewhere. 1 There is interesting indirect evidence which suggests that the sacred latrine in New Zealand 2 may also correspond to these pits.

There was definite orientation in the Cook group 3 and New Zealand, 4 temples or sacred buildings facing the east. In Hawaii temple enclosures seem to have been orientated to different cardinal points in those instances in which we have information regarding this. 5

There was too much variation with regard to houses, altars, images, drums, ovens, certain boards erected in memory of chiefs, and some other features associated with places of worship, to allow of a discussion of these here. The oracle tower in Hawaii appears to have had no correspondence elsewhere in the area. 6 The mere mention of these as features which were associated with places of worship in various parts of Polynesia may, however, be suggestive.

II

Stone slab seats associated with sacred places, sacred chief hood, and the ancestral cult, 7 were found in New Zealand, on Raro tonga

Marquesas: Tautain, op. cit., p. 688.

Cook Group: W. W. Gill, Myths and Songs, from the South Seas, p. 295. London, 1876.

1 Cook, op. cit., p. 716.

2 Smith, op. cit., p. 88, note.

8 Gill, Historical Sketches, etc., p. 32.

4 White, John, The Ancient History of the Maori, vol. I, p. 5. Wellington, 18 to 1890.

6 Malo, op. cit., p. 214.

A. Kraemer, Hawaii, Ostmikronesien, und Samoa, p. 106. Stuttgart, 1906. C. Wilkes, Narrative of the U. S. Exploring Expedition, vol. iv, p. 100. Phila- delphia, 1485. Ellis, op. cit., vol. iv, pp. 97, 116.

6 Malo, op. cit., pp. 211, 222.

7 It will be of importance to determine whether these stone slabs used as seats were identified with the slabs which lined the graves of chiefs in Tonga and Samoa. Dr. Tozzer has made the interesting suggestion that the platform which it has been supposed was the prototype of the temple forms may itself have been in origin an elaborated seat of sacred chiefs. There is evidence to support this suggestion. This is a very important point: the proof of the identity of origin of the slab seats and the platform would, as is easily to be seen, necessitate a total abandonment of most of the conclusions stated in the second part of this paper.

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