432 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



the Ngatimamoe paintings* on the limestone-rock shelters, 

 Mr. Edwin Ley showed us, at his home on the Opihi River, 

 some broken greenstone chisels which he had found in the 

 valley. They were of the same finely mottled jade as the two 

 described belonging to Mrs. Joli, of Springburn. Many more 

 stone implements of different types have been discovered at 

 Kakahu and on the Waitohi Downs within the last twenty 

 years. In the latter district some years ago a party of con- 

 tractors, in cutting through a small hill, discovered a valuable 

 Maori mere of pure nephrite, to which the Maoris of Temuka 

 laid claim as a long-lost tribal heirloom. At the present time 

 it is in the possession of a private gentleman at Temuka. 

 The innumerable Maori ovens exposed by the plough through- 

 out the Albury, Kakahu, Waitohi, Opihi, and Waimate dis- 

 tricts, when breaking up the land in the early days of settle- 

 ment, show the country named to have been occupied by a 

 considerable Maori population in former ages. There is no 

 question but that they were for centuries nomadic, and chiefly 

 depended on fishing and hunting for their sustenance. Their 

 stone implements also underwent great modification, both in 

 form and finish and in the use of better materials for their 

 manufacture. The Maoris of New Zealand may safely claim 

 the honour of having manufactured a greater variety of 

 forms of stone tools and weapons from a greater variety of 

 materials than any other race of people during the Stone Age 

 in any part of the world 



The Rev. Canon Stack, in his "History of the South Island 

 Maoris," in computing the respective periods of occupation of 

 the South Island by the extinct tribes, assigns Waitaha from 

 1477 to 1577. In his " Kaiapohia " he also states that the 

 great forests formerly covering the Canterbury Plains were 

 destroyed during the occupation of the South Island by Wai- 

 taha. We have unmistakable evidence of the former existence 

 of extensive areas of forest of great age on the plains. I have 

 also shown that numerous stone tools and other native uten- 

 sils have been found on all their sites throughout Canterbury. 

 Implements rude, semi-polished, and perfectly polished, of 

 basalt, argillite, sandstone, ironstone, chert, and greenstone of 

 several qualities, have been found associated together on the 

 sites of these ancient forests. The circumstances under which 

 they have been discovered by many of the early settlers supply 

 conclusive evidence that greenstone was known to the Te 

 Rapuwai and Waitaha long before the advent of Ngatimamoe 

 to the South Island. They unquestionably used greenstone 

 tools, but of more imperfect forms and quality than those 

 subsequently used by Ngatimamoe and Ngaitahu. No 



* Trans. N.Z. Inst., 1896. 



