Chapman. — On the Worhing of Greenstone. 501 



are mere lobes of highly-polished stone of special colour, one 

 weighing as much as ilb. 



Nearly all these things, it will be observed, require a hole. 

 The mere invariably had a hole, through which was passed the 

 thong which held it tightly to the wrist in action. The hole 

 is usually a wide-mouthed crater sunk in each side of the 

 handle end until the two meet — often meeting rather badly. 

 The work of drilling stone seems to have been most laborious. 

 Smaller objects, such as greenstone needles, and pendants, 

 and hei-tlkis, are often drilled, but even then the hole is often 

 unskilfully made, with a great crater mouth, again exhibiting 

 the difficulty of the work. In some cases two or three 

 attempts are made before success is reached. The explanation 

 is to be found later in my note on the drill. In some hei- 

 tikis, however, a piece of stone is left above the crown of the 

 head, and through this a hole is neatly drilled. 



Working-places. 



No doubt greenstone was worked in all Maori villages in 

 this Island, but certain localities must have been special work- 

 shops. At a certain spot at Longbeach, in the Purakanui dis- 

 trict, and at a similar spot at Warrington, I find innumerable 

 minute fragments, as if some chipping process had been carried 

 on there on a large scale ; though my authorities assert that 

 chipping did not form part of the process. Curiously enough, 

 these fragments are often polished, as if finished implements 

 had been chipped or shattered there ; but the fragments are 

 invariably very small. 



In the vicinity of this spot at Warrington (the Maori 

 name of which is Okahau) numerous unfinished objects 

 intended to be of a superior type have been found. The late 

 Captain Pitt, who lived there for years, had a number of 

 these, and I have recently found a very fine one. Here, too, 

 many fine finished implements have been found. Mr. Pratt, 

 member of Parliament for the Southern Maori District, tells 

 me that a small stream near here is called Hohopouiiamu, or 

 " Eubbing the greenstone ;" but the name appears to refer to 

 the dripping of water in the process of rubbing. 



By far the richest spot for finished and unfinished imple- 

 ments in this district is Murdering Beach, formerly called 

 Wauakeake. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter, who owned the little 

 farm there for many years, dug up immense numbers in 

 making their garden, and since then numbers of objects have 

 been found by others. In all, some six or eight hei-tikis have 

 been obtained there. 



Mr. John White tells me that of his collection, comprising 

 six hundred objects of worked greenstone, about four hundred 

 come from Murdering Beach or its immediate vicinity. Murder- 



