The dwellings of the chiefs at Ohinemutu are surrounded with inclosures of pole fences, and the Whares and Wharepunis, some of them exhibiting very fine specimens of the Maori order of architecture, are ornamented with grotesque wood carvings. Fig. 1100 is an illustration of some of them. The gable figure with the lizard having six feet and two heads is very remarkable. The human figures are not idols, but are intended to represent departed sires of the present generation.
Niblack (c) gives a description of the illustration reproduced as Fig. 1101.
Fig. 1101.—New Zealand tiki.
Tiki. At Raroera Pah, New Zealand. From Wood’s Natural History, page 180. Of this he says: “This gigantic tiki stands, together with several others, near the tomb of the daughter of Te Whero-Whero, and, like the monument which it seems to guard, is one of the finest examples of native carving to be found in New Zealand. The precise object of the tiki is uncertain, but the protruding tongue of the upper figure seems to show that it is one of the numerous defiant statues which abound in the islands. The natives say that the lower figure represents Maui the Auti who, according to Maori tradition, fished up the islands from the bottom of the sea.”
Dr. Bransford (b) gives an illustration, copied here as the left-hand character of Fig. 1102, with the description of the site, viz: “On a hillside on the southern end of the island of Ometepec, Nicaragua, about a mile and a half east of Point San Ramon.” On a rough, irregular stone of basalt, projecting 3 feet above ground, was the following figure on the south side:
Fig. 1102.—Nicaraguan petroglyphs.
This suggests comparison with some of the Moki and British Guiana figures.
The same authority gives on page 66, from the same island and neighborhood, the illustration copied as the right-hand character of the same figure.