Hamilton. — On Bone Pendants found in Otago. 489 



Art. LXYIII. — On Two Bone Pendants found in the South 

 Island of Neiu Zealand. 



By A. Hamilton. 



[Read before the Otago Institute, 12th July, 1892.] 



Plate LIII. 



At the mouth of the Shag Eiver, on the east coast of Otago, 

 are the remains of middens or refuse-heaps of great size, and 

 probably of great age. The contents of these middens have 

 been partly described in papers laid before the Institute," and 

 a general idea of their contents given. The ridge of sandhills 

 stretching northward across the mouth of the valley was for- 

 merly covered by the dwellings of those who have from time 

 to time lived at this spot. Now, the wind shifting the sand 

 from place to place often exposes the long-buried relics of the 

 vanished race. Mr. James Meredith, of Palmerston, one day 

 picked up on these sandhills the piece of carved bone shown 

 in Plate LIII., fig. 1, and since then it has passed into my 

 collection. The ornamental character of the relic is at once 

 apparent, and it is also evident that great skill, as well as 

 labour and patience, was required to carve it from the solid 

 and dense whale's bone of which it is made. The extreme 

 length is 130mm. ; the width at the top, without the orna- 

 mental border, 28mm. ; width at the centre, including the 

 borders, 40mm. ; the thickness, including the ornamental 

 ridge, is 14mm. ; the height of the central ridge, 5mm. 



The base of the thin ornamental ridge in the centre shows 

 that the ridge was first worked down to the proper thickness, 

 and that then the cut-out portion was started by boring small 

 regular holes from the right side of the object to the left. 

 They do not appear to have been drilled from both sides as 

 usual, probably on account of the thinness of the piece to 

 be cut. The centre ridge and the side ridges, or borders, 

 were finely notched or crenulated on the outside edges. 



Enough of the side-borders remains to show that they ex- 

 tended down the whole of each side to the pointed lower end, 

 which takes a sharp turn upwards, much increasing the diffi- 

 culty of manufacture. The lower part shows signs of wear, 

 and the polished condition of some of the lower fractures in- 

 dicates that these had occurred before the object was lost or 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. iv., p. 66 (Von Haast). Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 

 viii., p. 103 (Hutton). 



