COLEKSO. — Beminiscences of the Ancient Maoris. 451 



interior beyond Waikare Moana, in 1841, that I discovered 

 how it was effected. This patient performance has ever 

 seemed to me a notable example of one of their many laborious 

 and persevering works. For it must never be forgotten, in 

 considering their ancient laborious and heavy works, especially 

 in hard substances, as wood, bone, and stone, that they 

 accomplished all without the use or knowledge of iron or any 

 other metal. 



First, a straight, tall, and sound taica-Xivee, was selected 

 in the forest. This was felled with their stone axes. Its 

 head and branches having been lopped off, it was dragged 

 out into the open ground, and split down the middle into two 

 halves. If it split easily and straight, then it would probably 

 serve for two spears, if each half turned out well in the work- 

 ing. The next thing was to prepare a long raised bed of hard 

 tramped and beaten clay, 3oft.-40ft. long — longer than the 

 intended spear — the surface to be made quite regular and 

 smooth (like a good asphalte kerb town walk of the pre- 

 sent day). On to this clay bed the half of the taioa-tvee 

 was dragged, and carefully adzed down by degrees, and at 

 various times, to the required size and thickness of the 

 spear. It was not constantly worked, but it was continually 

 being turned and fixed by pegs in the ground, to keep it lest 

 it should warp and so become crooked. It took a consider- 

 able time — about two yeai's — to finish a spear. The last opera- 

 tion was that of scraping with a broken shell or fragment of 

 obsidian, and rubbing smooth wdth pumice-stone. When 

 quite finished and ready for use a suitable tall and straight 

 tree was found in, or on the edge of, the forest; its trunk was 

 trimmed of branchlets, &c. ; the long spear was loosely fixed 

 vertically to it, so as to run easily through small round 

 horizontal loops girt to the tree, and placed at some distance 

 from each other ; the tip of the spear concealed, yet pro- 

 truding near the topmost branches of the tree ; and, as the 

 pigeon is a very thirsty bird (especially, I should think, after 

 feeding on the lai'ge fruits of the tawa and of the miro — 

 Podocarpus ferriiginca — trees, which are hot and piquant), the 

 Maoris made small corrugated vessels of the green bark of the 

 totara tree that would hold water, and fixed such on the top 

 of the tree to which the long spear had been lashed, and by- 

 and-by, when the bird was settled above after drinking (for it 

 is a very quiet bird, sitting long after feeding), the spear 

 was gently pulled down by its owner below on the ground, 

 and sent up with a jerk into the body of the pigeon. I have 

 seen the fixed spear thus used in the forests, and have eaten 

 the bird so captured. 



I may here mention that I have also seen those totara-bark 

 dishes, with water in them, fixed high up on the big branches 



