70 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
being wholly new), they were never wrong as to the colours of the robes, etc., 
in which blues, greens, yellows, and reds, often predominated ; these they 
always settled to a nicety of description of their peculiar hues, and mostly 
by exact comparison, although to do so, occasionally took them some little 
time. 
It was mainly in this figurative manner, and by way of semblance and 
likeness, that the Maoris of my early days in New Zealand (following out 
the long-established habits and customs of their forefathers) could receive 
and communicate knowledge among themselves ; and happy was that mis- 
sionary or teacher, who could empty himself, as it were, of his foreign ideas 
and ways, and thus go with them after their manner in seeking to impart 
truth: all such always found willing hearers. Ideas must be given through 
something; and the old Maoris could only receive teaching in and through 
modes of thought that were natural to them. For it is not the mere use of 
terms, but the sense in which they are used and received that must be 
considered. It is a fallacy, though both a natural and a common one (and 
one into which Mr. Stack in his paper has fallen) to confuse the image with 
the thing signified, like mistaking the colour of a substance for its true 
nature ; but the old Maoris always steered clear of this. 
But, after all,—though they so well and so clearly distinguished the 
many natural hues of red and of orange, of blue and of green, and of all 
gaudy colours,—perhaps their really chief forte, their strict national taste, 
in this line was shown, in the using and displaying to advantage the more 
striking contrast colours,—the contraries of white and of black. This was 
everywhere among them singularly exhibited, particularly in their clothing 
and in their dress ornaments. In this particular I never heard or read of 
any uncultured nation that ever approached them. Hence, when first 
visited, their best dogskin garments, strongly lined with woven cloth of 
flax, were composed of small white and black squares of dogskin with the 
hair on, laboriously and firmly sewn together;* much like the regular 
pattern of one of our chess-boards, only on a larger scale. And so, following 
out the same severely chaste taste, they often trimmed and adorned their 
best bleached white flax dress-mats, covering them all over with black 
hanging strings and tassels set on at regular distances, and with a deep 
border of thick black fringe,—each separate cord or strand finely twisted 
by the hand. And just so it was in that other elegant dress-mat of theirs, 
the korirangi (large variegated shoulder- mantle, or tippet), in which the 
numerous larger hanging tassels with which the garment was closely 
* And here it should be remembered, that while the flax-mats were manufactured 
only by women, the dogskin-mats were wholly made-up by men, 
seat ate ie eee ean a ae ‘ 
TESS eT RR Seg 8 REIN ASG ae OSE 1 a 
