performed in the _marae_: there, too, the faithful assembled to pray,
and there the priests recited the same liturgy.[129] Thus both the form
and, to some extent at least, the function of the two types of sanctuary
presented a close similarity. The islanders themselves, it appears, do
not always clearly distinguish them at the present day.[130] And the
single distinction on which Baessler insisted, that the dead were buried
in the _ahu_ but not in the _marae_, seems not to hold good universally,
even on Baessler's own showing. For he admits that, "if ever a chief was
buried in his own _marae_, it must have been in most exceptional cases,
but probably statements to that effect rest only on a confusion of the
_marae_ with the _ahu_; such a practice would also run counter to the
habits of the natives, who sought the most secret places for their dead,
and certainly concealed the heads in caves difficult of access and
unknown to others. On the other hand, the _maraes_ of humbler families
may more frequently, if not as a rule, have served as places of
burial."[131] And even in regard to the holiest _marae_, dedicated to
the great god Oro, in the island of Raiatea,[132] Baessler himself cites
a tradition, apparently well authenticated, that a great number of
warriors slain in battle were buried in it.[133] The argument that the
people buried their dead, or at all events their skulls, only in remote
caves among the mountains seems untenable; for according to the evidence
of earlier writers the practice of concealing the bones or the skulls of
the dead in caves was generally, if not always, a precaution adopted in
time of war, to prevent these sacred relics from falling into the hands
of invaders; the regular custom seems to have been to bury the bones in
or near the _marae_ and to keep the skulls either there or in the
house.[134] On the whole, then, it is perhaps safer to follow earlier
and, from the nature of the case, better-informed writers in neglecting
the distinction which Baessler drew between a _marae_ (_morai_) and an
_ahu_. In any case we have Baessler's testimony that an _ahu_ was at
once a place of burial and a place of worship. There seems to be no
evidence that any of these sacred edifices, whether _maraes_ or _ahus_,
were associated with a worship of the sun. On the other hand, it is
certain that some at least of them were dedicated, partly or chiefly, to
a cult of the dead, which formed a very important element i