40: It's all on!

Recently we went back across to Kūwaha Tāwhetaana to plan the entry procedure. From final excavation, to lights required inside the cavern, safety of entry to security (it's paramount no one knows where it is and when it occurs), even a CO2 meter. All the cameras, extra memory cards, notebooks, sketch pads, measuring equipment and even gloves (we can't risk contaminating anything that might need to be tested for DNA or carbon dating). Finally, a procedure of concealment was required to close it up as it was and go back another day after entry is gained and complete the pre-planned and exhaustive study of what we find. And keep in mind, even when we have all this we can't just release the complete set of photos as any who might still be alive could recognize the location. This cannot be allowed to happen until results for tests come back - and in fact the costs of those tests may mean we need financial help to do so. When, and only when that is all confirmed, can we release all the photo's and video by taking off the password for the links in the tabs at the top of this website. And even then, the actual location of the cave cannot be revealed - not yet anyway. There are only two situations that will allow us to do that - 1. If authorities try to remove or destroy the evidence inside. If they do this we will release video of the walk to the location, the entrance, the crawl, the cavern and the contents. That will be irrefutable (or) 2. If they admit what is inside and agree to reveal it officially and preserve it and properly secure the entry portal.

We still can't confirm what is deep inside for it is still blocked, but a side entry space, (too small for a human) suggests quite a long cavern awaits us and that it is perfectly dry inside. This may be why it was chosen as one of the final resting places of the ancient 'tall ones' we now call Tūārangiroa-iwi, who once roamed those hills and valleys close to the sea up and down this coastline. We've ceased calling them any known names because Maori stories have them all jumbled and they are not the Patupaiarehe. Maybe I'll 'hear' what I need to know inside - after all, this will be done respectfully.

However, dry locations were not a standard burial practice for the ancients, for others skeletons exist, laid out side by side, in a very damp location under Karuni (A Tamil and Indonesian name associated with water), and now called Mt Karioi (which means to 'lie dead' in Maori). These skeletons are completely encased in a layer of translucent calcite in the same manner that stalagmites form...from dripping water leaching through the limestone formations. I imagine they look much like the skeleton of a warrior found encased in limestone drippings in a sea-cave at Cavern Head in Preservation Inlet in Fiordland around 1882. Interestingly with the name Karuni, the Tamil issue has resurfaced again, but the name is a fact and the newer Maori meaning reveals more than even most Maori realize I believe...but back to the task.

These 'tall ones' may have been seen by modern eyes before, but if they were, they saw didn't fit what those who saw them had been taught to believe about who were the real tangata Whenua. The others didn't want it revealed at all...and so it was concealed. And so well concealed it was only found by a complete fluke...or maybe intent. As I said, I didn't find it, it found me.

There are two other locations as mentioned previously, and I believe that just as the eventual emergence of Waitaha, that it is time for these long hidden people to be revealed and that we were chosen to do it, and that the modern use of social media in the last 2 years means that once revealed, it cannot be shut down or hidden again, not with what we have planned.

So wish us luck. Once we are in, this will prove to be the biggest hammed up anthropological fizzer of recent times - or the most revealing archaeological public exposure of hidden fact, by any person or persons, trained or otherwise, that New Zealand has ever had since...well...ever!