492 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



demand. Certainly, the wearing of an amulet or pendant, or 

 sachet of sweet-scented gums, was constant and almost uni- 

 versal among both sexes ; but the necklace of the northern 

 continental areas, composed of beads, or perforated stones more 

 or less elaborately shaped, was virtually unknown, and — which 

 is rather strange — did not come into fashion with the adoption 

 of European customs and habits. Even among the prehistoric 

 races in Europe and America elaborate necklaces are usually 

 found with human remains. This seems to have no parallel 

 among the Maori people. The few specimens of old blue- 

 glass beads, some quite plain, others facetted, which have 

 been found sparingly in Maori camps and pas in the North 

 and South Islands, are no doubt part of the trade-goods of the 

 earlier whalers, and were probably worn, a few together, as 

 an ear- ornament. 



In the middens and remains of villages in the southern 

 part of the South Island are found relics which prove an ex- 

 ception to the rule, and are of considerable interest. In the 

 collection of relics found by Mr. W. Mitchell in the neighbour- 

 hood of Lake Manapouri, tbere is a necklace nearly 2 yards 

 long composed of the shells of asmalldentalium, or tusk-shell. 

 The shells composing it were found lying together, and amongst 

 them a greenstone ornament, shaped like a conventional hook 

 called a matau. Mr. John White, of Dunedin, has also a 

 similar necklace in his collection. 



In the encampment at the mouth of the Shag Eiver, near 

 Palmerston, I have dug out from the middens a number of 

 the large fossil shells, Dentalium giganteum, brought there from 

 the Waitaki, from which short cylinders were cut, and pro- 

 bably strung together for necklaces or ornaments. 



In at least four collections in Otago there are numbers 

 of miniature axes about lin. in length, made from a piece of 

 a marine shell, ground to the shape of a stone axe, and 

 pierced at the other end for suspension, not at right angles to 

 the part corresponding to the edge, but in the same line with 

 it. In one instance over a hundred of these, much burnt, 

 were found in the ashes of an old house, all in a heap. Mr. 

 F. E. Chapman exhibited a considerable number amongst his 

 splendid collection of bone objects at the Dunedin Exhibition 

 of 1890, and called attention in his catalogue to the curious 

 instance given by Professor Boyd Dawkins, of the Bosnian 

 peasants wearing necklaces of cornelian arrow-heads even at 

 the present day. Mr. Chapman says in a note," " May not 

 these ornaments be looked upon as a survival from an ancient 

 epoch, when the Maoris dwelt on an island in the Pacific 

 where no stones for axes were procurable ? " 



* Official Cat. N.Z. andS.S.Exhib., 1889-90, p. 172. 



