64 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
Astelia (sp.), of kiekie, and of pingao,—collected from opposite and distant 
habitats ;—-some from the deep forests (climbing the highest trees), some 
from sandy dunes and sea shores, some from cliffs, and some from 
marshes ; and all torn into regular-sized shreds, and dried, and woven in 
various patterns, into one basket! often causing it to possess a very 
agreeable appearance from the various hues of colour; though, sometimes, 
the difference in the colour of some of the strands obtained from various 
plants was so slight as not to be readily distinguished at first sight by the 
eye of a stranger,—not without inclining the basket at its proper angle 
towards the light so as to reflect it. 
(9.) 
Of their striking, contrast, and gaudy colours. 
These, though various and often contrary, yet not many in number, I 
have taken together ; and that because they may all (as formerly used by 
the old Maoris) be well included under the one term of striking ; i.e., imme- 
diately catching the eye and arresting attention. 
And here their red colour, in its various shades of richness and depth, 
must take a first place. In nature around them, they saw plenty of a red 
colour,—in the rainbow, and in the gorgeous hues of the clouds at sunset ; 
in some of their birds,—as in the red beaks and feet of the pigeon, the 
oyster-catcher, and the blue swamp-hen, and in the red feathers of the 
large parrot, and on the heads of the two species of parrakeet ; in their fish,— 
as the red gurnard, the snapper, and the crayfish; in many of their sea- 
weeds ; and in the flowers and small fruits of several trees and shrubs. 
All those reds differed in hue, etc., from carmine to vermillion, and from 
bright light- to duil dark-red. 
Red, as already observed, was one of their national colours ; yet, its 
use was, in a measure, limited; and this, I think, is to be attributed to its 
having been originally deemed a sacred (tapw) colour ; which, in connection 
with their cosmogony, very likely first arose from observing the brightest 
colour of the rainbow (also a personage), and of the heavens at sunset, and 
sometimes preceding sunrise. They used this colour in its mineral state 
only extensively and commonly for their war-canoes, their chiefs’ private 
and their village big reception-houses, their kumara storehouses and the 
large carved images on the outer fences of their pas (towns and forts), for 
their grave fences and monuments, and for their boundary and other raised 
eut commemoration posts: all of which were more or less public and 
superior matters. This mineral colour was also used, both by male and 
female chiefs, for ornamenting or staining their persons, and also their 
clothing mats, especially on great public occasions and times of ceremony. 
To obtain this mineral red colour cost them much patient labour and no 
