Te Rangi Hiroa. — Maori Decorative Art. 467 



(tumatakahuki) , now no longer braced above and below, became, with its 

 lashing, purely decorative. A further recent development was the dis- 

 carding of the stake and the retention of the lashing, either down the 

 middle of another pattern or having the panel to itself with two or four 

 repetitions. A very modern variation in the other direction is seen in the 

 meeting-house Te Puru o Tuhua, at Taumarunui, on the upper Wanganui. 

 There the stake is retained and the lashing represented by oblique bands 

 of red, white,' and black paint. 



The further influence of European ideas and materials we have seen 

 in the development of the post-European designs and the introduction of 

 fluted boards to represent the kakaho. The limit is reached in the house 

 at Taumarunui mentioned above. Fluted boards are run horizontally 

 across the panel-spaces to represent the rods. They are painted red, 

 whilst black and white cross-stitches are painted upon them in the form 

 of designs. 



A few years ago old houses in various parts of the country could be 

 seen with panels completed in the various ways described. They served 

 as links with the past, and marked the stages through which the house - 

 panel had passed in the evolution of decorative art. 



Names and Motives. 



Professor Haddon* has pointed out that the investigations of Professors 

 -Ehrenreich and Karl von den Steinen in Brazil, and Mr. H. Vaughan 

 Stevens in the Malay Peninsula, have, through oral information gathered 

 from the natives, led to startling results as to the origin of simple geo- 

 metrical figures in the decorative art of those regions. Links have been 

 found establishing a connection between a recognizable though conventional 

 representation of a motive and a geometrical figure that is unrecognizable. 

 In these cases the geometrical figures were carved or painted. By these - 

 methods the craftsman had a vader scope for displaying his skill, and 

 could produce a recognizable representation of his motive before the evolu- 

 tion into geometrical figures occurred. In Maori panel-decoration the 

 craftsman was from the beginning confined by his field of small squares 

 to geometrical figures. These, with the exception of the step and the large 

 chevron, we have tried to argue were produced incidentally in the old 

 patterns. The most important clue to the origin of the motives to be 

 obtained by oral information is the name, with its meaning. Even with a 

 good working knowledge of a language it is sometimes extremely difficult 

 to say whether a geometrical figure developed incidentally and had a name 

 applied to it subsequently, or whether the motive named really gave rise 

 to the geometrical figure. In the old panel patterns, with the two exceptions 

 named, the pattern came first and the name after. 



The Maori has always been apt at naming places or objects from 

 incidents that actually happened in his new home or were told of the old 

 home in Polynesia, or from resemblances actually seen or attributed bv his 

 mythopoetic imagination. He could always find a name. According as 

 the thought struck the tribal craftsman on the completion of his work, so 

 he named his handiwork. The name was adopted by his assistants and 

 became the tribal name. Thus we have a variety of names for the same 

 motives amongst different tribes. 



* A. C. Haddon, The Evolution of Art, 1905. 



