Maori find skeletons on motorway route

[kokonutwoman]

Maori find skeletons on motorway route
'Matakite can see the dead ... They can see them just hanging there'
KATHY WEBB - The Dominion Post | Wednesday, 03 September 2008

Maori seers who claim to communicate with the dead say they have discovered human skeletons in an area due to become part of a Hawke's Bay motorway extension.

The chairman of Ngati Kahungunu iwi, Ngahiwi Tomoana, said 12 skeletons were lying side by side, and were probably those of early European settlers. They included women, children and babies.

The site is beside Irongate Rd on the outskirts of Flaxmere, Hastings, on the proposed route of the southern extension to the Hawke's Bay expressway.

Mr Tomoana said the area was investigated by Maori seers, or matakite, about 18 months ago after the route was announced.

"We got some seers in as normal practice," he said.

"They can spot bodies or bones or skeletons, and they came across these bones. It surprised us all. There's a whole family."

The find was reported to Transit NZ, but "met with scepticism", he said.

Contractors found the graves when they were sent to investigate recently. Such finds were not unusual.

Many people were buried outside official cemeteries, and some Maori were attuned to them, Mr Tomoana said. Matakite could "see the dead".

"They rise out of the ground and tell them they're there. They can see them just hanging there. It happens very often."

He believed the skeletons were European because Maori hid their dead in caves for security till well after the arrival of Europeans.

Burying them in open flat ground would have exposed them to the possibility of discovery and desecration by enemies.

The NZ Transport Agency's Hawke's Bay regional manager, Rob Bramley, said a ground penetration radar scan of the proposed road route had "picked up some anomalies in the sub-strata that appear to be graves".

But he could not confirm that till later this week. "We are cautious because we are waiting for a final report from the ground radar consultant to confirm there are graves there, and the number of them."

Any bodies found would be delicately removed.

Mr Tomoana said the bodies would be exhumed and the site blessed to allow construction of the road to continue.

[Misstique]

Interesting Koko - I know the area well.

Wasn't there something similar found along the route where they're putting in the new Auckland motorway? The one thats gonna bypass Huntly? It has been beseiged with problems? *shrugs shoulders* ... dunno if its hooly gooly bunk, or what?

In all honesty, we're such a 'young' & small country that you're bound to find "bodies" all over the place.

I also understand that large portions of Papamoa (here in Tauranga) was once sacred Maori ground - not sure if it was a burial (urupa) ground or not? - you'll find some exquisitely flash Miami vice type homes over there ..... Odd thing though, people never seem to last long in them. They get sold on quite a regular basis.

Read a write up a couple years back, Pakeha & Maori who live in this certain area were 'seeing' Maori warriors rowing their waka's THROUGH their backyards as if they were on water. They would hear maori chanting all hours, or maori men walking/running thru their walls etc .....!
Residents are often beset with unknown or unexplainable illnesses too. Odd Coincidences?

NOW, the local iwi are realising they should never have sold that part of their lands.

DOH. Ya think?!!!!!

[kokonutwoman]

Yes I think there was Misty

Another area I find very errie is the low lying area just before you hit Hundalee on the way to Kaikoura