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CoLENso.—On a better Knowledge of the Maori Race. 81 
That faculty was exhibited in many ways, e.g. :— 
In the building of their war-canoes with all their carving and many 
adornments; and that without plan, pattern, or tools. The exquisite re- 
gularity and symmetry of both sides of the vessel, including even that 
difficult one of carved concentric circles worked in filagree, were astonishing ; 
and, as such, borne ample testimony to by all their first visitors.* 
In the building of the highly ornamented houses of their chiefs. 
In all their better carvings, with which every article of wood, of bone, 
of shell, or of stone, was profusely and boldly adorned—from the handle of 
a working-axe, or spade, to the baler for their canoes. Horace truly says— 
** Pictoribus atque poetis 
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit equa potestas," 
to which, however, I would also add, sculptoribus; unless such may be 
considered as included in poetis; for Plantus affirms, ** Poeta ad eam rem." 1 
In their tattooing. 
In their Weaving, plain and ornamental, of many kinds and patterns 
(more than 200) of textile fabrics; and all simply done by hand! 
In their chequered dogs’-skin, and kiwi-feathered, and red parrots’- 
feathered, cloaks. 
In their making and twisting of threads, cords, lines, and ropes; many 
varieties of each. 
In their ornaments—of feathers,} of greenstone, and of sharks’ teeth. 
* Vide Cook, Forster, Parkinson, and others, passim; also, Nicholas’ “ New Zealand,” 
Vol. I., p. 48; 49. 
T “One of us arts in which the New Zealanders excel is that of carving in wood, 
They often display both a taste and ingenuity, which, especially when we consider their 
miserably imperfect tools, it is impossible to behold without admiration. The N. Z. artist 
has no lathe to compete with, neither has he even those ordinary hand tools which every 
civilized country has always afforded. The only instruments he has to cut with are 
rudely fashioned of stone or bone. Yet even with these his skill and patient perseverance 
contrive to grave the wood into any forms which his fancy may suggest. Many of the 
carvings thus produced are distinguished by both a grace and richness of design that 
would do no discredit even to European art. Their war-canoes have their heads and sterns 
elaborately carved. On their musical instruments much time and labour is bestowed in 
shaping, carving, and inlaying.”—The New Zealanders, pp. 129, 131 
t Of their taste in feathers for decoration of the head, we have notable instances 
recorded. It is well known that the national taste in this respect was severely simple yet 
graceful 
t Simplex munditiis"—HoRn. “Plain in thy neatness."—MILTO: 
The New Zealanders preferring the snowy-white plumes of three birds in leas in 
white stork, the albatross, and the gannet, and the black feathers, tipped with white, of 
the Huia (Heteralocha gouldi);—nothing gaudy or of strong glittering colours was 
approved of by them; otherwise they could easily have manufactured such feathers fom 
several of their indigenous birds. All this we have in the voyages of their 
visitors, and in the plates. But in the principal plate (or the one ostentatiously intended 
& 
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