whose bodies had been embalmed"; and as a motive
for the practice he alleges the sanctity which attached to these places,
and which might naturally be supposed to guard the graves against
impious and malicious violation.[122] However, the first missionaries
say of the islanders that "they bury none in the _morai_, but those
offered in sacrifice, or slain in battle, or the children of chiefs
which have been strangled at the birth--an act of atrocious inhumanity
too common."[123] According to Moerenhout, the _marais_ (_morais_)
belonging to private families were often used as cemeteries; but in the
public _marais_ none but the human victims, and sometimes the priests,
were interred.[124] Thus there is to some extent a conflict of testimony
between our authorities on the subject of burial in the temples. But the
evidence which I have adduced seems to render it probable that many at
least of the _morais_ served as burial-grounds for kings and chiefs of
high degree, and even for common men who had fallen fighting in the
service of their country.

[122] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 405. See above, pp. 117 _sq._

[123] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 364.

[124] J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 470.

In more recent years the German traveller, Arthur Baessler, who examined
and described the existing ruins of these sacred edifices, denied that
the _maraes_ (_morais_) were places of burial, while he allowed that
they were places of worship.[125] He distinguished a _marae_ from an
_ahu_, admitting at the same time that they closely resembled each
other, both in their structure and in the ritual celebrated at
them.[126] According to him, a _marae_ was a sort of domestic chapel,
the possession of which constituted the most distinctive mark of a noble
family. Every chief, high or low, had one of them and took rank
according to its antiquity.[127] It was an oblong area, open to the sky
and enclosed by walls on three sides and by a pyramid on the fourth:
walls and pyramid alike were built of blocks of stone or coral.[128] The
_ahu_, on the other hand, was a monument erected to the memory of a
distinguished chief, whose mortal remains were deposited in it. But
apart from the grave which it contained, the _ahu_, according to
Baessler, hardly differed from a _marae_, though it was mostly larger:
it was a great walled enclosure with a pyramid, altars, and houses of
the priests. And the ritual celebrated in the _ahu_ resembled the ritual