e or oblong platform of stones,
exactly resembling the stone platforms on which the Marquesan houses
were regularly built. Thus Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz say that "the
_morais_, funeral monuments where the bodies are deposited, are erected
on a stone platform, the base of all Nukahivan edifices."[106] Again,
describing what he calls "a picturesque _morai_," Radiguet observes,
"Four posts, erected on a platform, supported a small plank covered with
a roof of leaves. Under this roof could be seen the remains of a
skeleton, perhaps that of the daughter-in-law of the neighbouring
house.... At the two ends of the platform two upright stones, about ten
feet high, and resembling the Breton _menhirs_, formed an exceptional
ornament to this _morai_, which the bushes were in course of invading
and the storms of demolishing."[107] Again, Stewart describes as follows
what he calls "a depository of the dead": "It stands in the midst of a
beautiful clump of trees, and consists of a platform of heavy stone
work, twenty feet or more square and four or five high, surmounted in
the centre by eight or ten posts arranged in the shape of a grave, and
supporting at a height of six or seven feet a long and narrow roof of
thatch. Close beneath this was the body enclosed in a coffin."[108]
Again, in the island of Tahuata (Santa Christina), Bennett describes a
chief's burial-place as follows: "A low but extensive stone platform,
beneath the shade of a venerable _fau_-tree, marks the more consecrated
ground; and on this is erected a wooden hut, containing an elevated
trough, shaped as a canoe, and holding the perfect skeleton of the late
chief. In front of the sepulchre are two hideous wooden idols, and
several bundles of coco-nut leaves."[109] The shed, which was erected on
the stone platform, and under which the body rested on a bier, seems to
have consisted for the most part simply of a thatched roof supported on
wooden posts.[110] Sometimes, however, instead of a simple shed, open on
all sides, a small house resembling the ordinary houses of the natives
appears to have been erected for the reception of the corpse or mummy.
Thus in the island of Tahuata (Santa Christina) Bennett describes a
burial-place as follows: "The most picturesque mausoleum we noticed was
that which contained the corpse of one of Eutiti's children. It was
placed on the summit of an isolated hill, rising from the bosom of a
well-wooded savannah, and was covered entirel