CorENso.—On the Maori Races of New Zealand. 351 
(1.) From this plant they wove a very great variety of dress mats; from 
the large, elegant, and silky bordered kaitaka of the chiefs, to the common 
pakè, or rough bee-butt-like cape for the shoulders, against the rain and cold. 
Much time was necessarily occupied in weaving a first quality dress-mat: 
the seeking the variety of flax requisite, and the scraping, preparing, and 
selecting of its fibre; the tewing it to make it soft and silky; the slow 
weaving; the further seeking of the different barks and earths required for 
dyeing the flax in three colours for its lozenge border, to which they always 
gave the utmost attention. Under the most favourable cireumstances one 
of those best mats could scarcely be finished in two years. Some of those 
mats were made very soft by repeated tew-tawing. All were more or less 
ornamented; some with a wide border woven differently from the body of 
the mat, and dyed with enduring colours ; others having a profusion of fine 
glossy black tasselled strings, about five or six inches long, regularly depend- 
ing at equal distances from them ; others with a rich border of black, or 
black and white, fringe; and others (korirangi) were thickly adorned with 
chequered black and yellow strings, which being also hard in spots or joints 
through the leaving on of the skin, &c., of the flax, rattled pleasingly with 
every movement of the wearer. Their more common and daily rough and 
shaggy dress mats, though anything but ornamental, were exceedingly useful, 
and excellently adapted for preserving their health. Being water-proof, this 
mat kept them dry and warm in the severest weather; being loosely worn, 
it allowed of free ventilation; and being rough, it kept up that healthy, 
slight irritation of the skin which to them was indispensable. They also 
used other fibrous plants for clothing mats, although the flax ( Phormium) 
grew everywhere. The strong, durable, and wholly black-dyed mat called 
toii, was made of the fibres of the handsome large-leaved mountain Cordyline 
(C. indivisa). The long leaves of the climbing kiekie (Freycinetia banksii), 
and of the neinei, or large-leaved Dracophyllum latifolium, were also used by 
them ; while the bright yellow leaves of the pingao (Desmoscheenus spiralis) 
were woven into useful purse-like girdles. The natives in the more southern 
parts of the group also wove very useful flax sandals for wearing on the 
snow. The floor mats, of various sizes, patterns, and fineness, were also 
neatly woven of flax or kiekie leaves, separated by the thumb-nail into narrow 
slips; or of the leaves of the large cutting-grass toetoe (Arundo conspicua), 
denuded of its edges; or of those of the nikau palm (Areca sapida) ; of all 
which materials they also made their numerous baskets, of many patterns, 
kinds, and sizes. Some of their fancy baskets, woven in elegant patterns 
with dyed leaves, were highly ornamental. They also made strong and 
serviceable dress mats of the hairy skins of their dogs, and also of the 
feathers of the kiwi (Apteryx), for which they wove a strong lining of flax. 
Li 
