454 Transactions. 



(b.) Horizontal Rods. — The horizontal elements form the inner layer of 

 the panel. They were placed close together so as to cover completely the 

 outer layer of kakaho, but leaving enough space between the rods to pass 

 the flexible material through to form the patterns. In old houses the 

 long straight stalks {kakaka) of the common fern (Pteridium escuieMum) 

 were used. In the better houses laths of totara (Podocarpus totara) or 

 rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum) were adzed out for this purpose. Wood 

 that had lain in water for some time was sought after, as it split much 

 more easily. The laths were shaped to an even thickness and width. The 

 Whanganui people say that rimu was preferable to totara, as it did not 

 fracture so easily. The laths were often painted red with haematite, or 

 blackened by exposing to fire or rubbing with parapara, a black mud 

 obtained from peaty swamps. These two colours were used alternately 

 on an even number of laths. This held good in the East Coast and 

 Whanganui districts. In the beautiful carved house in the Auckland 

 Museum, which is of Arawa design, the number of laths of one colour is 

 generally odd. Colenso,* in his description of the panels of a house that 

 was made for him by the Hawke's Bay people, states that the coloured 

 rods of black and red were in threes. One cannot help thinking that the 

 Maori, no matter how skilled, were careless about some details in building 

 for Europeans, as they did not have to live in the houses themselves. In 

 many of the good houses in existence at the present time white paint has 

 been added to the red and black of old. Paint has, of course, been used 

 for the red and black, as it is more durable than the original material. 



The rods or laths are called kaho tara by the Arawa, and kaho tarai on the 

 East Coast. The Whanganui called them arapaki, and also used the same 

 word for the entire panel, including the panel-patterns to be described later. 



In some of the very modern houses fluted boards have been placed 

 horizontally across the panel-space to represent the transverse arrange- 

 ment of rods. A variation in the arrangement of the rods is seen in some 

 of the meeting-houses near Te Puke, in the Bay of Plenty. Here the 

 rods, instead of being horizontal, run diagonally across the panel-space. 

 This method is modern, and is used with some of the panels to lend variety. 



(c.) The flexible material for stitching the design consisted of (1) flax 

 (harakeke, Phormium tenax), (2) kiekie (Freycinetia Banksii), (3) pingao 

 (Scirpus frondosus). 



Kiekie was preferred to flax, as it had a whiter colour after preparation. 

 Pingao was used for its orange colour, but was only procurable in certain 

 localities on the sandhills near the coast. The long leaves of these plants 

 were shredded with the thumb-nail into strips of from a tenth to an eighth 

 of an inch in width. The strips were placed in hot water and then 

 scraped (kaku) with a shell, to remove part of the outer epidermis covering 

 the fibre. They were then doubled over, tied into hanks, and hung up 

 to dry. When dry the kiekie and flax became white, whilst the pingao 

 retained its rich orange colour. Some of the kiekie and flax strips were 

 dyed black to add further colour-variety to the decoration. The method 

 of dyeing was the same as in the preparation of flax-fibre (muka) for dress 

 cloaks. The scraped material was soaked in an infusion of the bark of 

 the hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus), which acted as a mordant. It was then 

 rubbed with, or steeped in, the black peaty mud (parapara) above referred 

 to. On drying, the strips assumed a permanent black colour. 



* W. Colenso, Trans. N.Z. Lnst., vol. 14, p. 50, 1882. 



