442 Transactions . — Miscellaneous. 



given, making a fair list of Maori cutting implements. The 

 miratuatini, there mentioned, is a ^a^^(-shaped wooden instru- 

 ment, with maho (sharks' teeth) set in the outer curved edge. 

 It was, I believe, used in cutting up human bodies at cannibal 

 feasts. 



A formidable weapon was the holioupu, an adze-shaped 

 affair. The blade was of poima^nu or other stone, the handle 

 elaborately carved and decked with feathers. It was spe- 

 cially the weapon of a chief, and was used to cleave skulls 

 withal. Polack in his book refers to one of these thus : — 



" At a future period many aboriginal curiosities will be 

 discovered by the European colonists in tilling the ground that 

 will give much satisfaction to the antiquary, as the New-Zea- 

 landers have been from time immemorial in the habit of bury- 

 ing with their dead the favourite axes and implements of stone 

 that were highly prized by their chiefs while in this existence. 

 The removal of such articles a few years after being once de- 

 posited in a sacred place would be accounted the height of 

 impiety and sacrilege, either by a foreigner or native ; the 

 former would be subjected to lose every article of property he 

 might possess, the latter to death. This feeling is now fast 

 giving way, but the knowledge of the places where those pre- 

 cious articles have been placed is lost, the priesthood only 

 originally knowing the secret, and they are long since num- 

 bered with the dead. In 1835 an influential priest was bribed 

 by us to dispose of an ancient adze, called Toki-pu-tangata by 

 the people ; it was extremely ancient, and had been buried in 

 the sandy soil for many years ; the place of its interment was 

 only known to the priest, who had noted the spot by the 

 branching of a particular tree called rata. We afterwards 

 discovered that had the circumstance been known of the priest 

 having sold it, probably the infuriated sticklers for sanctity 

 would have sacrificed the seller to their resentment. The 

 adze was formed of a blue granite inserted in a handle of the 

 rata, or red-pine (?) wood, carved agreeably to native taste. 

 This instrument, from disuse, is scarcely to be met with in 

 the country." — (Polack's " Manners and Customs in New Zea- 

 land," vol. i., p. 71.) 



Weapons of stone were much used by the Maori. Several 

 kinds of stone were used, but the one most prized was the 

 pounamu. The weapon made from this stone was called a 

 mere-poiinamu, and was perhaps the most valuable article a 

 Maori could possess, more especially in the North, so far from 

 the place whence the stone is obtained. There is some un- 

 certainty as to the period when this stone was discovered or 

 came into use by the Maoris. 



There is a legend or myth in which it is spoken of as a 

 treasure owned by a personage named Ngahue, who brought 



