Pa Ce Se ee eee i ee 
ee eel es ae eee he ee Oe meren 
ee eC eee 
Ree nae Se ee, ee a eee a re Pe 
CoLenso.—On the Colour Sense of the Maoris. 67 
was also distinguished by the old Maoris from the other planets and stars by 
its redness. Hence, too, they very quickly detected the alteration in the colour 
of the face and of the eyes,” arising from bashfulness, apprehensiveness, 
or shame, or from concealed vexation or open anger; and not unfrequently 
plainly told the actor or sufferer of it ! to his, or her, further vexation and 
discomfiture, 
Blue was another colour which the women and young men sometimes 
used with striking effect for ornamenting their faces, necks, and arms; this 
colour they obtained from two sources, one mineral and one vegetable, but 
it was very scarce. The mineral, in the state of a fine clay or powder, was 
but rarely found at the north, and then by chance, in some cold swampy 
grounds having a clay subsoil, and there only occasionally, adhering in 
small quantities to the roots of some cyperaceous plants ; when pure it was 
of a most beautiful hue of blue (ultramarine) ; the only indigenous natural 
productions known to me at all resembling it in colour, were the lovely blue 
berry of Dianella intermedia (when in perfection) ; the blue tints of a living 
Medusa (Physalis pelagica ?—« Portuguese-man-of-war’’) often found on our 
outer sandy beaches in the summer season ; and a portion of the blue 
plumage of the kingfisher ; this colour was a still more brilliant blue than 
the breast of the swamp hen (Porphyrio). In the early summer season the 
youths of both sexes ornamented their faces with the light-blue pollen of 
the Fuchsia flowers,—much, indeed, as they also did with the orange pollen 
of the New Zealand flax, but this latter was not sought out purposely for 
face decoration as the former one was, but used, or accidentally smeared, in 
their sucking the honey-like liquid from the perianths of the flax. Of pure 
blue colours, however, the Maoris had but few naturally, save in the sky t 
and (at times) the changeable sea; in the breast plumage of the swamp 
* See, ‘Trans, N.Z. Inst.,” Vol. XIL., pp. 124, 138, etc. 
t Here I would remark, that it was always my opinion—I might say, my well- 
grounded belief—that to the old Maoris the unclouded midnight sky did not everywhere 
appear to be of so dark, or so clear, a blue as it does to us,—owing to the superior strength 
of their far-off and piercing sight, through which they saw very many more of the smaller 
Stars, and even nebule, than we did, or could. I have already mentioned, in a former 
paper (“ Transactions,” Vol. XIII, p. 63, note) my having proved their seeing with the 
unassisted eye Jupiter’s satellites ; and I have also repeatedly proved their seeing not only 
the “seven” stars in the cluster Pleiades (which was one more than I could ever see), but 
even more !—eight, nine, or ten. And so, again, in some parts of the Milky Way,—the nebula 
in Argo Navis, and in Orion,—the Magellanic clouds, etc., ete., all appeared to them 
more clearly defined, more starry (if I may so say), than to us. Still, their very expressive 
proper name for the int blue sky—kikorangi (on whick dit latives a chapter of 
interesting philological exegesis might be written) must be borne in mind. {I believe that 
T'was the first who discovered, or unearthed, and brought into early notice this term.) 
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