MAORI CHARNEL HOUSE.
A most remarkable discovery has been made through the fall of an old tree. The Bay of Plenty Times states that some distance up the Okato Gorge near Opotiki, on a portion of the estate belonging to Mr Thomas Black, a puketea tree, probably many years old, has been blown down, disclosing the astounding fact that the whole of the hollow interior extending from the roots to the first fork, about 45 feet, had been filled with human bodies. Since it fell these have burst out at the butt of the tree: in a confused heap of skeletons. A more extraordinary sight than this monarch of the forest lying prone and discharging a perfect catacomb of human skeletons can scarcely be conceived. Some are nearly perfect, while others are mixed up in a chaotic mass of heads, hands, feet, arms, and legs, indiscriminately. All the Maoris here seem to have been unaware of this natural charnel-house, and declare that it must have happened long before their or their fathers’ time. Indeed, the appearance of the tree fully justified the supposition that it must have been some hundreds of years since this novel family vault was filled with its ghastly occupants.
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Bibliographic details
Patea Mail, 26 January 1882, Page 3
Word Count
203MAORI CHARNEL HOUSE. Patea Mail, 26 January 1882, Page 3
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