TRANSACTIONS 



OP THE 



NEW ZEALAND INSTITUTE, 



1903. 



I. — MISCELLANEOUS. 



Art. I. — Notes on Two Maori Calabashes, luith Carved 

 Wooden Necks called Tuki or Ko-ano-ano, 



By A. K. Newman. 



[Read before the Wellington Philosophical Society, 4th November, 1903. \ 



Plates I. and II. 

 The Maoris having abandoned their original arts, and their 

 old methods of fashioning weapons and utensils, and their 

 charming quaint carvings, it is desirable that real original 

 relics of all kinds should be described and depicted ere they be- 

 come lost ; and this is all the more necessary as the country 

 is being flooded with cheap untrustworthy imitations. Origin- 

 ally the Maoris devoted much labour to carving ornaments, 

 and such carvings abounded in the pas, but through time and 

 neglect many of the commonest have become rare. 



Eecently I bought these two large calabashes, with their 

 artistically carved wooden necks or mouthpieces, and as I 

 cannot find any detailed account of them in our literature or 

 in the Transactions I put on record this description, their 

 history, and their uses. My pair were discovered lying 

 neglected in a Maori outhouse in the Wairarapa. They 

 belonged to a Maori who said they belonged to his grand- 

 father, and are believed to be a hundred years old. This is 

 probably true, for the making of such articles has long been 

 abandoned, and the few now existing show marked signs of 

 age. 



Each calabash consists of the rind of a gourd called hue, 

 the seed-vessel of a plant brought in the canoes from Ha- 

 waiki. To the neck of each gourd is affixed, at its narrowest 

 part, a wooden collar or mouthpiece quaintly carved. The 

 whole is called a taha; the neck is commonly known as tuki, 



1— Trans. 



