MYSTERY OF TWO SKELETONS FOUND AT WHAKATANE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 8, 10 March 1950, Page 5

MYSTERY OF TWO SKELETONS FOUND AT WHAKATANE

The discovery at Whakatane of two complete skeletons possibly belonging to some ancient people has aroused much interest, and those people who have examined the bones so far consider they are older than the usual Maori remains found in the district. Now reaching the crumbling stage it is obvious that the bones have been buried for a very long time and are quite possibly not Maori remains, Negroid Features A qlose examination has revealed that the top of one of the skulls was severely fractured and, according to a'medical authority who has seen it, it was probably the cause of death. This same skull shows the pronounced sweep back of the forehead tfroni the eyebrows and lends weight to f the opinion that these are the remains of some dark native race, similar in appearance to the negroid inhabitants of some pf (the Melanesian Islands. - Further evidence is supplied by the worn end *of one of the shin bones which showed that ifhese people squatted on their haunches. Admittedly the old time Maori did too but not to the same extent. The teeth, although beginning to fall away now with age, are in very good'"' condition in both skulls. From- present examinations it would appear that one of the skeletons belonged to a male and the other, which seems smaller, a female.

The remains of- some’- large bird about the size of a fowl was also uncovered but as soon as the bones Were touched begari to disintegrate. There were several other bones lying nearby but these have not yet been fully uncovered. The question of who these people might have been is "an vinteresting one. In his new book, “The Coming of The Maori, 1 # Sir Peter Buck mentions a dark race with ✓something like negroid features who were supposed ‘ to have reached New Zealand before the , Maori. However, he says they somewhere near New Plymouth. Dark People

A dark people shipwrecked near Whakatane are also mentioned by Elsdon Best in his work on the Tuhoe People. These dark visitors were believed to have,, come from Melanesia, the islands in the area north of Australia, but what happened to them in the Bay of Plenty remains a mystery. Best believes they landed and settled near Thornton. 1

Whatever the answer it is doubtful if anything concrete will be established and then only after the remains' have been examined by experts. Whether there was a dark, people in this country before the Maori is still a matter, of opinion but the fact remains that there are some Maoris today who show glimpses of a possible negroid or Indian ancestry both in features, build and colour.