506 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



striking as a quarterstaff. As the fighting got closer these 

 had to be laid aside, and the mere was then taken from the 

 belt and fastened to the right hand. The thumb was thrust 

 through the loop of the thong, and then one turn made round 

 the hand. To have thrust the hand through would have ex- 

 posed the warrior to the risk of being dragged into danger by 

 any one who could successfully grasp the blade of the weapon — 

 a risk never run. The left hand now grasped the hair of the 

 enemy, the fingers being twined among the long locks. This 

 probably describes a moment when the enemy had already 

 been reduced to inactivity by many blows, or had been thrown 

 down. Then the blow was struck, rather as a stab, if pos- 

 sible, at the side of the head, where the bones are weakest, 

 and it was thus driven into the brain. Whare-kino, a West 

 Coast chief, had a spear run through his arm by Tuhuru, 

 and, being violently pushed, fell upon his face. Before he 

 could rise Tuhuru caught him by the hair, and was just about 

 to smash his head with his mere-pounavm when he recognised 

 him as his own cousin, and spared him. 



Dr. Shortland describes the mere-iJOtinamu to which in 

 the South Island he finds the name rakau-pounamu given. 

 This word means timber, or perhaps club, and may be 

 derived from the use of a wooden club in olden times. There 

 is a highly-ornamented wooden mere, sometimes shaped like 

 an ordinary mere, sometimes like a bill-hook. Tasmau, de- 

 scribing in 1642 the attack upon his boat, says that the natives 

 were armed with short thick clubs like clumsy parangs. He 

 does not say of what they appeared to be made, but had they 

 been either of white whalebone or of greenstone he would pro- 

 bably have noticed it. 



Famous Implements, etc. 



It would be impossible in a paper like this to refer even 

 briefly to any considerable number of the famous historical 

 implements and ornaments of New Zealand. A few only can 

 be mentioned. English lawyers are familiar with the case of 

 Pusey vers2is Pusey, in White and Tudor's Leading Cases, de- 

 cided in 1684, which shows that before the days of title-deeds 

 a material object might be the outward symbol of a title to 

 land, and that in this one case the tenure still exists. There 

 the horn is equivalent to a title-deed, and on it is the inscrip- 

 tion in what looks like comparatively modern, or fourteenth- 

 century, English, — 



K5"ng Knowd geve Wyllyani Pewse 

 This home to hold by thy land. 



Such cases are not unknown in New Zealand. The title-deed 

 of the famous Heretaunga Block, now worth three-quarters 



