Sa eM EO ae SC NRE eS ee ne eT eh ee aE Re ee Ce ee 
Ss a) See 
ee ee ee IN eee ee en ren See 
Cotenso.—On the Colour Sense of the Maoris. 71 
covered were all severally and regularly annulated, and made of alternate 
black and white (or black and yellow) chequer-work. Each of those dress- 
mats, made after the fashion above described, took a long time to manu- 
facture. 
The same taste was also observable in their smaller personal ornaments ; 
—in the pure white natural plumes of the white heron, and in the long 
white semi-transparent muslin-like epidermis of the mountain ¢ikwmu plant, 
and in the artificially-scraped and bleached white inner rind of the paper 
mulberry, for their black hair; in the snowy-white tufts of the down of the 
albatros and of the gannet for their ears, to set off the more strikingly 
the black lines of tattooing in their cheeks. And so with their other highly 
prized head ornaments, namely, the long black tail-feathers of the huia 
bird tipped with white ; and the skin of the dark-plumaged twii (or parson- 
bird), with its strikingly-contrasted hanging white neck-feathers suspended 
in their ears; and also the shark's white tooth (mako), for which, as a 
contrast, they early sought a yard of black silk shoe-ribbon: this last 
addition of a black ribbon, was, of course, a more modern one; but it 
was entirely in keeping with their national taste before it became debased 
and vitiated ;—and in no case did I ever once detect a Maori wearing a 
red or gaudy-coloured ribbon to suspend his white ear-pendant of shark’s 
tooth, 
Before, however, I quit this part of my subject (having brought pro- 
minently forward their dresses made out of their white and black dog- 
skins), I would also briefly remark, that although I have seen very many of 
their old and ancient carved and ornamented staffs of rank, they were all 
hung and decorated with white hair only, obtained from the flowing tails of 
their white dogs; and I never saw, or heard, of such a staff being so 
ornamented with the hair of the tails of their black dogs. And this could 
only have arisen as a matter of similar general taste; the white hair, when 
new, being a much greater contrast to the carved dark and stained wood of | 
the staff, than the black hair could be. 
I have shown how greatly the old Maoris loved a pure white colour, and 
to what great pains, and even dangers, they went in order to secure orna- 
ments, etc., possessing it in its purity. Some of our early settlers will also 
recollect how very much the Maoris of 25-30 years back (before they gener- 
ally adopted European garments) preferred pure white calico sheets as 
open flowing garments for summer wear, for adults as well as for 
children. And not a few of our colonists (possibly some of my audience 
here this evening), who have travelled with Maoris, or who may have 
fallen-in with them in travelling, will have noticed how very quickly the 
