444: Transactions. 



Yet another stone object, of which a number have been found on old 

 village-sites, is what the writer usually refers to as a stone spool. It bears 

 a resemblance to a couple of cotton-reels placed end to end. These imple- 

 ments are about 3 in. in length, and are very carefully fashioned and 

 finished. A hole is bored axially through the middle, as though for the 

 insertion of a cord, and one side is fiat. The outstanding rims or ends and 

 intermediate projections are notched on their edges. A fine specimen 

 found by Captain Bollons is of black stone, and has a very fine finish ; it 

 has five projections adorned with notches. Another, at Whanga-nui, is of 

 greenstone ; another was found at the Chatham Isles. All have been 

 made with much care, and at the expense of considerable time and labour. 

 Their use is unknown, though some absurd guesses have been made in that 

 direction. 



The only object known to the writer as resembling this spool implement 

 is an object of similar form worn by women (Mohammedan presumably) in 

 Cairo, and probably elsewhere also. This is so worn as to cover the nose, 

 and apparently has some connection with the veil worn by such women. 

 The New Zealand object is so carefully finished that it can scarcely have 

 been a tool, as some suppose, but may have been a pendant. Its form is a 

 most singular one. The Maori can tell us nothing concerning it. 



In addition to the above there are other manufactured objects of stone 

 and bone in museums and private collections, the names and uses of which 

 are unknown to the Maori. If these various objects were made and used 

 by Maori folk it seems singular that all knowledge of them should have been 

 lost. In this connection I do not refer to the younger generation, but to 

 the old grey-heads who take pride in preserving knowledge of the customs 

 of their ancestors. 



Stone Adzes of Kew Zealand. 



In common with all other branches of the Polynesian race, the Maori 

 hafted his timber-working stone tools as adzes, not as axes. In connection 

 with these implements there is a peculiar and ixnusual element to which 

 attention does not appear to have been drawn. In the northern Pacific 

 area we find at the Hawaiian Isles a well-defined type of stone adze 

 possessing an angular tang, easily recognizable wherever seen. In the 

 eastern Pacific we find at the Society Isles another well-marked type of 

 peculiar form, marked by excessive thickness in comparison with its length. 

 At the Cook Isles also we have a definite form of these tools. In the Fiji 

 Group — Melanesian in name, but with a considerable mixture of Polynesian 

 blood in its eastern area- — we find two leading types, one of which is circular 

 in cross-section, a form that found little favour among Polynesians. All 

 of the above forms differ widely from the thin-bladed stone tools of the 

 Solomon Isles and New Guinea. 



Turning now to New Zealand with some expectation of finding one or 

 two local types of stone adzes, it is somewhat surprising to find that our 

 collections cannot be reduced to two or even four common types. We 

 find here a considerable number of forms illustrating widely different types. 

 We do not see a common form of cross-section among our specimens, as 

 we do among those of the Cook, Society, Hawaiian, and other groups. In 

 New Zealand we note numbers of implements in which the cross-section 

 is rectangular, triangular, oval, ovoid, or subovoid, &c. We find a long 

 narrow form, some thin, some remarkably thick ; a flat, wide, comparatively 

 thin type ; a short form, thick and carrying an abrupt blade-angle ; a form 

 with angular tang ; another carrying a curious shoulder-ridge across the 



