490 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



buried. A well-drilled hole at the top enables this beautiful 

 pendant to be suspended. 



The centre ridge commences 11mm. from the top edge, 

 just giving room for the hole for suspension. 



The character of this pendant is so different from those 

 generally used as ornaments by the Maoris that I might have 

 hesitated to bring it forward if I had not been able, through 

 the kindness of the Director of the Colonial Museum, to ac- 

 company it with a figure of a pendant (PL LIIL, fig. 2) almost 

 exactly similar found by Mr. Eobson near Cape Campbell, and 

 sketched by me, as an illustration to Mr. Eobson's paper, in 

 the Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. ix., pi. vi., p. 280. 



This specimen is 88mm. long, and about 20mm. in width. 

 The pattern cut is exactly the same, but the work is a little 

 more rounded than in the larger example, and there is no 

 central ridge, nor any denticulation of the edges. 



There is the same upward curving of the narrowed lower 

 part, and the hole at the upper end for suspension. There is 

 a slight groove or depression in the centre, near the top, at the 

 widest part. 



The curious curve of the lower end suggests at once a com- 

 parison with the stone pendant figured by the late Mr. John 

 White in Vol. hi. of the " Ancient History of the Maori," 

 p. 192. This has a triangular section, and the front angle 

 has on it a number of notches, which, Mr. White states, were 

 marks for genealogical purposes, and used in the same way as 

 the wliakaioapas or carved staves. I have given an outline- 

 figure of this pendant (Plate LIIL, fig. 3), with sections (figs. 

 7 and 8), from a cast of the original. It will be seen by sec- 

 tion b, fig. 8, that the upcurved point is strongly channelled, 

 like a gouge. I also notice very evident knobs or horns on 

 the head of the face at the top. It is interesting to note that, 

 although this form of pendant is evidently very rare and of a 

 peculiar style of art, it is exactly matched by a fragment 

 picked up by Captain G. Mair near Cape Kidnappers, in 

 Hawke's Bay (fig. 4). I do not know of what material the 

 one figured by Mr. White is made, but the Kidnappers speci- 

 men was of a very hard white-and-red porphyritic stone. 



It is difficult to suggest an explanation of the actual mean- 

 ing of the shape of these pendants ; we may, however, be sure 

 that there originally was a deep significance in their strange 

 forms. Comparisons may be made with the long greenstone 

 eardrop, sharply curved at the base, common in the North 

 Island but not seen in the South, and with the jmlaoa or 

 curved ornament worn on the breast in some of the Pacific 

 islands. It is impossible not to notice the resemblance be- 

 tween the bone pendants and the sacrum of a bird. We are 

 told that the sacrum derived its name from being the part of 



