BuDDi-E. — Maori Roclc-engravings in the Kaipara DistricJ . 597 



liieir time in such mahi noa iho. And upon examining the weathered sur- 

 face and comparing it with that of the ditch, which still showed perfectly 

 clearly the gouge-like impressions of the wooden ho with which it had been 

 dug, I was convinced that the carvings were as old as the pa. Moreover, 

 the cemetery is not more than ten or iifteen years old, ancl the condition 

 of the engravings shows them to be very much older ; and if they had been 

 done in modern times there would certainly be traces of pakeha ideas — 

 letters, or something of that sort. Furthermore, on the side of another 

 similar excavation there was visible a trace of the same devices, and upon 

 scraping away a considerable quantity of mould which had fallen in I found 

 another series of very similar engravings. These, owing to the discoloration 

 of the surface, I was unable to photograph. 



The Natives of the neighbouring settlement of Haranui were able to 

 furnish me with little information on the subject. They told me that the 

 name of the pa was Oparuparu ; that it belonged (as did all the old pas in 

 this district) to the Waiohua or Ngaiwi Tribe ; that it was taken by Ngati- 

 whatua, from the north, about the same time as Otakanini, but, while the 

 latter was occupied by the conquerors, Oparuparu was destroyed. 



The supposition that they are archaic inscriptions, such as have been 

 so much talked of of late, may thus at once be dismissed. They are ob- 

 viously and typically Maori, and their age cannot be more than one hundred 

 to one hundred and fifty years. 



As to their significance — if they have any — it is a mere matter of specu- 

 lation. We read that the aricient Egyptians placed in the tombs of their 

 dead the various articles supposed to be needed by the deceased in their 

 after-life. At a later date they ceased to place there the actual articles, 

 but instead painted or carved representations of them on the walls. This 

 symbolism clearly was the first germ of the idea of a written language, and 

 led naturally to the chronicling in picture-writing of the deeds of the de- 

 ceased. The carvings and paintings which adorn the- walls of the Maori 

 iiinanga, or council-house, representing ancestors and their deeds, may 

 perhaps be considered in the same light. The carvings in question, are in 

 an exactly similar position — namely, on the walls of a dwellinghouse. The 

 only thing in the nature of a scheme which is visible in these carvings is 

 the recurrence of the same device — namely, the conventional Maori face, 

 \vhich is the most prominent in both series. It will be noticed that these 

 faces are of various sizes and proportions, and that some of them are 

 curiously distorted. The only other symbols pertainmg to man or human 

 action are the two hands — if such they be — on the right side of the picture. 

 Then several purely decorative designs are interspersed here and there, 

 \vliile the linear designs on the left are more like Moriori tree-carvings than 

 anything else, but they are too much weathered to make anything of them. 

 This absence of any scheme or order is against their representing any 

 events, for this implies a connection of ideas, and these ideas would naturally 

 be set down in succession as they occurred to the worker. This want of 

 order is also against their being purely decorative, since the Maori decora- 

 tions are conspicuous for order and symmetry. Lastly, the fact that there 

 ;ire two series seems to indicate that they are not merely a mahi noa iho, or 

 work of no account, done to pass the time. 



There is only one other explanation which suggests itself to me. Mr. 

 John Webster, of Hokianga, has described to me a ceremony witnessed 

 by him, in which a tohunga, in consulting the oracle, drew miintelligible 

 designs upon a piece of sandstone. This seems to me to afford a possible 

 — though not a probable — explanation of the significance of these carvings. 



