Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/104

92 there, and are to be found there at this day. If this temple was of the height—twelve fathoms = 72 feet—mentioned in the tradition, or even half that height, and considering its purpose, it seems a fair inference that it

was built of stone, or something more permanent than the usual edifices we know of in the Pacific. Of course the Polynesians did use stone in their sacred places, as witness the several pyramidal structures found formerly in Tahiti, of which Mahai-atea, Papara district, was a particularly fine specimen. But this marae was solid