Feb., 1893. THE INDUSTRIES OF THE MAORIS. iii 



dexterity and rapidity with which he produced his long hanks and 

 coils of twine and cord, keeping them regular, too, as to thickness, 

 was truly wonderful." A great variety of ropes were made to suit 

 special requirements ; flat plaited ones to put over the shoulders in 

 carrying loads, thick stranded ones for heavy work, and a peculiar 

 fine cord bound round with a still finer one like the fourth string of a 

 fiddle, used only for one purpose — to bind the under aprons of chiefs' 

 daughters. 



The Maoris made fishing nets of enormous size, 5 fathoms 

 deep and two or three hundred fathoms in length. With these 

 mackerel were caught, a fish which has since disappeared almost 

 entirely from the waters round New Zealand. They also caught 

 sharks and fresh-water eels, which were dried and preserved for 

 future use ; there was no mutton in those days. Bivalves and cray- 

 fish were also extracted, dried, and preserved. The rat was a great 

 delicacy, once very plentiful ; it is now extinct. The following is Mr. 

 Colenso's description of its preparation : — " It was carefully singed 

 .and so denuded of its fur, then its bones were broken within the body, 

 and extracted by the anus without breaking the skin ; this done it 

 was cooked in their earth-ovens, and being very fat, made choice 

 plump morsels, somewhat resembling large sausages. The contents 

 of its stomach (being a frugivorous animal) were also eaten." 

 The Maories were fond of perfumes which they prepared from 

 Hepaticae, Hymenophyllum, and other plants ; the choicest was got 

 from the gum of the peculiar plant taramea [Aciphylla colensoi) with 

 much ceremony. Interesting descriptions of the manufacture of black 

 pigment for tattooing made by burning resins and catching the soot 

 are given ; the soot is mixed with fats, and must then be eaten by a 

 starved dog, and the voided faeces gathered for use. 



The extremely interesting and valuable paper by Mr. Chapman 

 is replete with information of which only a brief abstract can be 

 given. It is forty or fifty years since there was a regular manufac- 

 ture of stone implements, and too little is known of the way in which 

 these implements were made and used. So soon as the savage 

 acquires a steel axe and a gun, his beautiful but ineffective stone 

 weapon becomes useless; it is laid aside, and no more are made. In 

 a few years all the elder savages are dead, and the younger ones have a 

 very transient impression of the ways of their cannibal ancestry. 



With small exception, the whole of the various kinds of pouuamu 

 •or "greenstone" is found in a restricted locality on the west coast 

 of the south island. It occurs in boulders in the deposits of gravel 

 in-the beds of the Rivers Taramakau and Arahura, and the boulders 

 are also found on the beach at the mouth of the rivers, cast up by the 

 sea. The location of the dyke or vein from which the boulders came 

 is not known. Formerly the stone was rare and expensive, but since 

 these river gravels have been worked and washed for gold, consider- 

 able quantities have been found, and it is now not worth more than 



