war. — And who was the man whose bones these are? 5 days 

 ago a boat of our enemies came into this bay and of them we 

 killd 7, of whoom the owner of these bones was one."' 4 



Tattoo styles, dialects, clothing, settlement patterns, and 

 the distribution of carving, cultivation, ornamented canoes, 

 greenstone, and other riches varied markedly from district to 

 district in these first fleeting glimpses of classic Maori life. As 

 one contemplates carvings and greenstone ornaments, the 

 great taonga of the Te Maori exhibition, it is as well to remem- 

 ber also the dugout canoes and rough shelters of more margin- 

 al populations living in many parts of New Zealand. It is not 

 only our hearts that might quiver at the sight of spirals and 

 speckled jade; in earlier times, as a war canoe's sternpost swept 

 around the headland and the sun splintered off the edge of a 

 greenstone weapon, then people's hearts quivered in earnest 

 and they ran for their lives to the hills. Wealth, power, and 

 danger came together in Maori life and thought: 



kura: treasure; red, glowing (the tapu color); a taiaha 

 (weapon) ornamented with red feathers; red ocher; 

 chief man of prowess; knowlege oikarakia (prayers) and 

 mediation with the gods (wananga); ceremonial restric- 

 tion, danger. 

 Treasures also implied knowledge and power to converse 

 effectively with the gods. 



Knowledge is the way to a Maori understanding of the 

 taonga in this exhibition, for each treasure was a fixed point in 

 the tribal network of names, histories, and relationships. They 

 belonged to particular ancestors, were passed down particular 

 descent lines, held their own stories, and were exchanged on 

 certain memorable occasions. Taonga captured history and 

 showed it to the living, and they echoed patterns of the past 

 from first creation to the present. It is not possible to give a 

 single account that will interpret each of these works, because 

 their history belongs to individual groups and each group told 

 its history differently. Wananga (knowledge of mediating with 

 the gods) and matauranga (knowledge of the past, genealogy, 

 chants, and spells) were treasures taken by ancestor gods and 

 passed down the descent lines as part of their sacred power. 

 Descendants claimed the knowledge of their own group and 

 sought to maintain its mana. Listen to the old priest Te Mator- 

 ohanga, who had taken part in the East Coast school of learn- 

 ing Te Rawheoro, speaking to his pupils in about 1865: 

 Attention! O Sirs! Listen! There was no universal system 

 of teaching in he Whare Wananga. Each tribe had its 

 own priests, its own college, and its own methods. From 

 tribe to tribe this was so; the teaching was diverted from 

 the true teaching by the self-conceit of the priests which 

 allowed of departure from their own doctrines to that of 

 other Whare Wananga [school of learning]. My word to 

 you is: Hold steadfastly to our teaching: leave out of con- 

 sideration that of other (tribes). Let their descendants 

 adhere to their teaching, and you to ours; so that if you 

 err, it was we (your relatives) who declared it unto you 

 (and you are not responsible); and if you are in the right, 

 it is we who shall leave to you this taonga. " 



There was no one cosmos in precontact times, then, be- 

 cause variations in the tribal accounts extended right back to 

 the stories of creation; the ecological variations observed by 

 the first explorers were echoed in different ways of explaining 

 the universe. Tribal taonga were located in different conceptual 

 16 as well as physical landscapes, and the truth of their stories was 



held to be truth within a particular tribal tradition. What they 

 held in common, though, was their ability to act as a focus for 

 ancestral power and talk. 



The famous Taranaki taiaha (long staff) Te Porohanga, for 

 instance, was used by the fighting chief Titokowaru in the 

 1860s as a medium for Uenuku, his battle god. When Titoko- 

 waru was about to go into battle with the British, he gathered 

 his warriors and stood before them with the taiaha balanced 

 horizontally between forefinger and thumb. The spirit of 

 Uenuku entered the taiaha and it would turn and point to 

 those men who should join the war party that day. 



Another taonga that is still held by its inheritors is the 

 greenstone tiki Mahu-tai-te-rangi. When Tahupotiki, the 

 younger brother of Porourangi, founding ancestor of Ngati 

 Porou, was forced to migrate to the South Island, some of his 

 followers discovered a great rock of greenstone hidden in a 

 cave. 



They chipped off a piece and showed it to Tahu, and it 

 was lighter in colour than the greenstone in the water. I 

 suppose the sun had been beating down on the river 

 greenstone for years and years and turned it that dark 

 green colour, but the greenstone in the cave was hidden 

 away and it had stayed very pale. They were trying to 

 think of a name for it when somebody spotted some her- 

 rings in the river. "Hey! He inanga — herrings! It's pale 

 like those herrings," so they called the greenstone from 

 the cave "inanga." The people decided to make some- 

 thing from that first chip, and because it was for the chief 

 it had to be very fine. "How shall we carve it?" 

 "Oh . . . you design it like a man, he'll be the one to lead 

 us. Give him hands and a face and everything." "Yeah, 

 but don't put his tongue out because we don't want a 

 fighter. If he's going to be our leader we need someone 

 who can talk to us and tell us what to do. Just leave his 

 mouth open as though he's saying 'Go this way . . . no, 

 not that!" "And don't put a hole through his head, we 

 don't want him dead. Just put the string through his arm 

 and keep his hands up, because if his hands are down 

 that means his work is finished — ka pu te ruha. ka hao te 

 rangatahi — the old net is set aside, so you young people 

 go fishing. But this man, no! He's going to live with us 

 forever and be our guide to tell us what to do and what 

 not to do." 



So they carved the tiki Mahu-tai-te-rangi with one 

 hand on his hip, and his face looking up at you all the 

 time. 16 



This is Amiria Stirling, the present holder of the tiki, talking 

 about its history. When she was recently interviewed on televi- 

 sion about old customs she wore Mahu-tai-te-rangi, and as she 

 spoke the tiki twisted on its cord. Her husband saw this and 

 said to her, "You see? Mahu-tai-te-rangi doesn't agree with 

 what you're saying — he's turning his back!" 



Greenstone weapons were also revered and handed down 

 from father to son. A man would risk his life to recapture such a 

 weapon, and might sing in its praise: 



I fasten Te Heketua's strap (round my waist) 



Indeed, you are not very large 



(Still), the skin is clasped as at night by a woman's legs!' 7 



Storehouse doorway (kuwaha patakaj made of wood, 92 cm. (36'A 

 in.) high, by the Ngati Kuhungunu tribe of Here taunga; Te 

 Huringa 1 period (1800 -present). Collection of the National Museum 

 of New Zealand, Wellington. 



