Best. — Maori Forest Lort. 461 



being filed down into barbed points. One such lying now before me is 

 1 1 in. in length ; another obtained was somewhat longer. The one in my 

 possession is \ in. wide at the butt or lower end, and tapers {koekoeko) gradu- 

 ally to a fine point, a flattened point. The butt end is flat on one side that 

 it may fit on the flattened end of the spear-shaft, where it would be lashed 

 on. When the outer side of the base of the makoi was filed down, two 

 slight ridges of the iron bar were left, one at the extremity and one an inch 

 from it, so that the point could not be pulled free from the lashing. The 

 barbs were formed in like manner as the bar was filed down. There are 

 ten barbs, which also decrease in size towards the point of the makoi. These 

 barbs are arranged in sets of two and three, points of barbs about ^ in. 

 apart, but the space between the sets is from 1 in. to IJ in. These spear- 

 points are admirably made, as were those of bone and hardwood fashioned 

 during the Stone Age of the Maori. 



Tarewa-tao is the name of a rimu tree that stands on the Purenga Block. 

 It was so named because in former times fowlers were in the habit of hang- 

 ing their bird-spears thereon. The trunk of the tree being concealed from 

 view by a dense growth of climbing plants, the spears were thrust up through 

 this growth, and were so hidden from view. 



Tuhoe always lashed the makoi firmly on to the spear-shaft. I had 

 read Heaphy's account of a spear-point that was detached by the struggles 

 of the transfixed bird, and hence made inquiries. I have seen such an 

 apparatus among the Indians of the Pacific Coast north of California, who 

 use such in salmon-spearing. The point was lightly bound to the shaft, 

 and was detached by the struggling fish, which could not, however, escape, 

 because the point was connected with the shaft by a loose cord or lanyard. 



In the " Transactions of the New Zealand Institute," vol. xii, p. 35, 

 Colonel Heaphy gives an account of his accompanying a party of Maori bird- 

 spearers into the forest at Belmont, near Wellington, in 1839. He says, 

 " The spears are about 12 ft. long . . . The point of the weapon is of 

 bone, and barbed. This bone is hung securely by a lanyard at its base to 

 the spear-head, but when ready for use is lashed with thin thread alongside 

 the wood. The wounded bird flutters with such force as would break the 

 spear were the whole rigid, but as arranged the thread breaks, and the bird 

 on the barbed bone falls the length of the lanyard, where its strugglings do 

 not afi'ect the spear, and it is easily taken by the fowler's left hand. . . . 

 The spears were very slender, not more than half an inch in diameter at 

 thickest part. . . . This mode of capturing birds, very soon after our 

 arrival (in 1839) went out of vogue. The spears were exceedingly difficult 

 to make, and the few that were finished were eagerly bought by the whites 

 as curiosities." 



The spears here mentioned were very short ones (12 ft.), and much more 

 slender than any I have seen, which were about 1 in. in thickness, and none 

 shorter than about 18 ft. The colonel states that the pigeons were very 

 tame, and were speared on low trees, the spearers " sometimes even ascend- 

 ing the lower branches of the tree." This was poor spearing. Tuhoe 

 and other tribes, with their long spears, climbed to near the top of high 

 forest-trees when spearing birds. I distinctly remember an old Native 

 living at Wai-kohu, Poverty Bay, in 1874, who used one of these long spears 

 for taking pigeons in the little bush at Puke-matai. He was camped with 

 two Ngati-Porou sawyers, Hare and Mokena, who were cutting out the 

 Lome homestead. This old chap had a rude ladder (row) fixed on the trunk 

 of a lofty kahikatea. He used to climb up to the upper branches thereof 



