Ancient carving, with death tabu, found in Tahiti 

ANCIENT CARVING, WITH DEATH TABU, FOUND IN TAHITI POLYNESIAN ‘MILK STONE,’ FULL OF MAGIC FIGURES, 

TOLD OF BY SCIENTIST STRANGE TALE SENT TO BISHOP MUSEUM BY EMORY, WHO INVESTIGATES IN SOUTH

HONOLULU STAR BULLETIN        SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1925

    A strange tale of an ancient carved stone which it was believed by Polynesians, has the power to cause milk to flow along its groves, to kill the man who touched it, has been sent to the Bishop Museum from the island of Tahiti in the Society group by Kenneth P. Emory, A.M., ethnologist of that institution, who left Honolulu on the schooner-yacht Kaimiloa some months ago and who is now making special investigations in the South Seas.

    Located in a brook bed a few kilometers from the town of Papeete, the bolder bears the first petroglyph to be reported from Tahiti, and so well has it been concealed that only within the year has it been brought to the attention of the French Societe d’ Etudes Oceaniennes, whose president, M.E. Ahnne, kindly conducted Emory to the spot in January of this year.  The young scientist also discovered two similarly carved smaller stones nearby.

ELABORATELY CARVED

    “The stone presents a flat, smooth, water-worn surface, six feet long and four feet wide which is entirely filled by the conspicuous carving,” Emory writes.  “During heavy rains, the brook floods the rock but as yet the groves of this carving have been only slightly obliterated, except for the linear figure or figures on the east or the most exposed side.  As the groves of the large elaborate central figure are everywhere of even depth , the smooth surface of the bolder is not the result of water erosion, since the carving, but before it was made at a time when the brook had not cut down to its present level, but had flowed over the rock.

    “The brook has since found a lower level and in doing so has undermined the bolder and caused it to tilt.  There are o marks of steel tools on the rock and it is safe to conclude from this as well as from the aged appearance of the groves that they are, at the very least 100 years old.

    “Yet it hardly seems that they can be more than a few centuries old, else the many torrents of the brook should have caused more damage.

A small brook with a steep pitch such as this one, is geologicallyspeaking, a young and swiftly changing thing, so no great antiquity can be argued since the bolder laid in the stream bed and received the polished surface which was to be engraved.

    “I am sure that we may safely conclude that the bolder has at all times lain in a position determined by nature and that a century or so ago it was level and probably flush with the waters of the brook, when the brook was well filled, and that about the time it was carved.”

BACK AND FRONT VIEWS

    After a study of the pictured rock carving one realizes that chief difficulty or the artists of that day seems to have encountered in depicting both the back and the front of a figure in the same outline!

    “Although most of the carved lines seem well defined,” Emory continues, “It is not so clear what the carvings represent.  That they are conventionalized human figures, falling at once into general accord with Hawaiian and Maquesan petroglyphs and executed in the style of the latter, there can be little doubt, I think, to one who examines the data on record at the Bishop Museum.

     “Directly over the double-headed figure is a small human figure, arms encircled over the head, head  outlined with the face represented by a single circular depression The body is outlined and the leg on the right is jointed at right angles.  The other line is seen to be a part of a sinuous line which commences from the top of the head and makes a wide bend to the left.  An eel is represented this way on the Moanalua petroglyph rock , Oahu, a cast of which is in the museum.  By one conception this sinuous line on the Tipaerui rock represents an eel or snake, the head of which may be easily seen mouth down and touching the left head of the double headed figure.

    “At first sight the large central figure appears to consist of two human figures back to back.  In Hawaii and in the Marquesas, the human figure carved in outline is always represented face on, not in profile, and I see no reason to believe that this figure is an exception. One might expect that the faces might also be shown in profile, but this is not necessary in the Polynesian representation of the human form.  Among Hawaiian petroglyphs the body, represented full on, is often shown in this way.

    “One of the two other petroglyph rocks at Tipaerui shows a single human figure with arms and legs outlined and the sides of the body doubly outlined. The human form was then represented in this way.  I therefore believe we must assign the extra head as representing the back of the center head.  The artist, I think, was at a loss how else to represent a double figure.”

    “The rock was carved in memory of Tetaurii vahine and her twin children,” legend says.  Bruillard, whose sister owns the property on which the petroglyph is situated is responsible for the story. 

“Tetaurii, defeated \, took refuge in Tipaerui valley.  His wife there gave birth to twins and soon after all three died.  They were buried on the land of Oteoteroa close to the brook.