Smith. — On Maori Belies. 427 



Pelorus Sound to the Bluff, Canterbury unquestionably sup- 

 ported the largest population. The area would be chosen 

 by the extinct tribes, like their destroyers the Ngaitahu, as 

 being more easily accessible, and as yielding a greater supply 

 of marine and fresh-water lish, together with land- birds, in- 

 cluding the extinct moas, forest products, and fern-root. 



We are now living in an important period, when all data 

 respecting these interesting relics of an ancient past in these 

 islands should be carefully collected and accurately recorded. 

 When the old pioneer settlers of the plains have all passed 

 away, leaving those treasures behind them which they found 

 when they ploughed the virgin soil ; when the original features 

 of the plains shall have wholly changed, and perhaps the 

 aboriginal inhabitants — the noble Maori — shall have vanished, 

 they will then be cherished as being among the most valuable 

 possessions of the New Zealand museums. It is very regret- 

 table that the numerous specimens of ancient stone imple- 

 ments and other valuable articles now in the possession of the 

 settlers cannot be brought together to form a South Island 

 collection, " for the good," as Captain Hutton expressed it to 

 me, "of those who are to come after us." From the forms 

 of the implements, the various materials they are made of, 

 and the localities where they were discovered, we are able to 

 form an accurate opinion of the economy and habits of their 

 aboriginal owners. 



Amongst the stone implements^ I have collected there are 

 some curious types or forms not represented in the Canter- 

 bury Museum collection. They comprise both rude and 

 polished implements of very varied forms, while they are 

 made from a variety of rocks occurring in widely separated 

 districts in the South Island. I have also examined numerous 

 and, in some instances, unique specimens now in the pos- 

 session of many of the older settlers, by whom they are much 

 prized. In every case I have been permitted to photograph 

 or sketch them, and figures of some are shown on Plate XVI. 

 As many sites of the ancient encampments and other rude 

 dwellings of the extinct tribes are rapidly disappearing before 

 the advancement of agriculture, I will refer only to those 

 which I have visited and examined. 



To all interested in the history of bygone tribes of the 

 Maori in the South Island there is invariably great pleasure 

 in carefully exploring old encampments and collecting every 

 remnant to be found in their vicinity. The painted rock- 

 shelters and caves in the limestone rocks at Weka Pass, 

 Opihi, Albury, and Maerewhenua, in North Otago, have 



* Now placed permanently in the Maori house of the Canterbury 

 Museum. 



