424 Transac tions . — Miscellaneous . 



manufactured, and the flax-bush suppHed the staple of their 

 clothing material. With a wooden sj)ade the Maori tilled the 

 ground, dug his fern-root, excavated the rua, or places in 

 which his winter supplies of food were stored, and the pare- 

 pare and maioro, or fortifications, of his pa. With fragments 

 of stone of various kinds, ground down with infinite labour to 

 a cutting-edge, he made axes and adzes, lashing them with 

 flax to wooden handles ; he felled the tree, hollowed and 

 shaped it to form his waka taiia, or war-canoe, 70ft. or 80ft. 

 long ; dubbed down slabs of equal length to form the rauawa, 

 or bulwarks ; shaped and fitted the liaumi ; and made paddles 

 to propel his man-of-war through the water. With smaller 

 tools made of the same materials, and a bit of shell or bone, 

 or a flint, or flake struck off a block of obsidian, he carved the 

 figures and scroll-work of the ornamental prow and sternpost. 

 With the same tools he hewed out and dressed down slabs to 

 form the poutoJcomanaiva, or pillar-support, of the ridgepole of 

 his house, and all the other timbers required in its construc- 

 tion — the tauhu and papa, the viailii and matapihi, with 

 their elaborate carving and ornamentation. Some of these 

 houses were very skilfully constructed, and finished in a style 

 which surprises those who have seen good specimens of them. 

 x\ minute description of a house built and finished in old Maori 

 style for Mr. Colenso in 1844 is to be found at page 50, 

 vol. xiv., "Transactions of the New Zealand Institute." 



According to tradition, the ancestors of the Maori came 

 over to this Island some eighteen or twenty generations ago. 

 They came from a place or places referi'ed to in their traditions 

 as Haioaiki. They came in several canoes — the names of 

 which are preserved — in separate and independent parties, at 

 different times, arriving and landing at different places. The 

 accounts of these migratory expeditions vary greatly, but, so 

 far as I am acquainted with them, they contain little to aid 

 us in an endeavour to identify or connect the people who came 

 in these canoes, in respect of their implements, weapons, 

 arts, or manufactures, with existing races in other parts of the 

 world, or to trace them with anything like certainty to their 

 original home. The generally-accepted theory is, I believe, 

 that the New-Zealanders are a mixed race, combining the 

 physical characteristics of the Asiatic and African types of 

 mankind. 



Taking into consideration the fact that these people, with- 

 out any precise standard of measure, with such utterly in- 

 adequate appliances as they possessed or could procure, were 

 able to achieve the results wliich are to be seen in many speci- 

 mens of their handicraft, we cannot, I think, withhold our 

 admiration. The carvings and sculptures with which they 

 decorated their canoes, houses, and patakas, the palisades and 



