Best. — Clothing of the Ancient Maori. 625 



the Itetepanes, and the Gaddanes — all aborigines of the 

 Philippines — their children are born with a patch of dark 

 colour on the loins, which, as they advance to mature age, 

 disappears. 



I think it would be worth the while of explorers and 

 scientists, particularly in Micronesia and Melanesia, to make 

 further inquiries into the question as to the birth-marks 

 peculiar to certain tribes, if such marks exist. It may be a 

 much more subtle witness of race-origin or race-crossing than 

 colour of the general skin or hair-texture, and may some day 

 help to throw the light into a dark place. 



Abt. LXV.— T/te Art of the Whare Pora : Notes on the 

 Clothing of the Ancient Maori, their Knoivledge of pre- 

 paring, dyeing, ajid iveaving Various Fibres, together toith 

 some Account of Dress and Ornaments, and the Ancient 

 Ceremonies and Superstitions of the Whare Pora. 



By Elsdon Best. 



l^Read before the Auckland Institute, 10th October, 1898.] 



The following notes on the above subject have been collected 

 from one tribe alone — viz., from Tuhoe, of the Urewera 

 country. They therefore embody only such information as 

 the elderly people of that ancient tribe have preserved of the 

 art of the ivhare pora of Tuhoe Land in pre-pakeha days, to- 

 gether with a brief and imperfect account of divers strange 

 customs and ceremonies pertaining to the art of weaving, as 

 practised by the old-time Maori. 



It would appear that in former times the Maori was by no 

 means the cultureless savage that some would have us believe. 

 The youthful Maori, male or female, passed through a regu- 

 lar education in the days of yore, even as does the Teuton of 

 our advanced culture stage, though necessarily of a different 

 nature. When the stalwart sea-rovers of old colonised these 

 islands they found that their lives must here be lived under 

 somewhat harder conditions than those which prevailed in the 

 isles of the Sunlit Sea. This fact would naturally tend to- 

 wards stimulating their inventive faculties, and rendering the 

 race mentally and physically stronger. 



More especially would this be the case in regard to cloth- 

 ing. The pleasant, sun-wrapped isles of Polynesia called for 

 no more warm or durable garment than those formed from the 

 40 



