Mair. — Chips from an Ancient Maori Workshop. 241 



sewing-needles, which, being made from the fine hard bone of 

 the albatros-wing, are in perfect preservation. I also noticed 

 a number of slabs of a kind of sandstone called " hoanga " by 

 the natives, none of which, so far as I know, is to be found in 

 the neighbourhood of Tauranga, and large smooth stones or 

 anvils. The axes, adzes, &c, are also made from a hard kind 

 of stone not found on the mainland, but probably obtained 

 from Tuhua, or Mayor Island, which is just opposite and 

 about fifteen miles off shore. A number of shafts made from 

 bone, stone, or petrified wood were found. They are evi- 

 dently the haft or stem of some kind of fish-hook, and pro- 

 bably the link is attached as shown in Plate LI., fig. 2. 



I found portions of two rare stone pendants or neck orna- 

 ments, something like the unique specimen deposited by Miss 

 Morrison in the Auckland Museum. Some years ago I found 

 one exactly similar near Cape Kidnappers, Hawke's Bay. 



Only a few greenstone ornaments or greenstone chips were 

 found, and they are probably of much later date. The man- 

 ner in which the stone weapons are chipped out is really most 

 artistic, and evidences great skill. The class of weapons are 

 evidently the work of a people in a much lower stage of 

 civilisation, and are not highly polished and like those used by 

 the Hawaikians, or ancestors of the present Maoris. Many of 

 the axes and adzes had been fitted with wooden handles, and 

 even the binding of kiekie-roots lay in spirals round the wood 

 and stone, but w r as quite perished, and the wood crumbled at 

 the lightest touch. 



Not the least interesting of my discoveries was finding the 

 tiny model of an ancient pa tiwataivata, or palisaded fort, 

 which had evidently been a plaything of the village children. 

 It had been made by sticking three rows of totara splinters 

 into the ground, forming the three lines of defence known as 

 the Pekerangi, Kaikirikiri, and Kiri tangata. There were two 

 gateways (tvaharoa), approached by long alleyways. The 

 model was of this shape, and about 6 ft. by 4 ft. : — 



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