COLENSO. — On the Maori Maces of New Zealand. 351 



(1.) Prom this plant they wove a very great variety of dress mats ; from 

 the large, elegant, and silky bordered Jcaitaka of the chiefs, to the common 

 pake, 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 circumstances 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 {Phor'niiuni) 

 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 {Freycitietia ianksii), 

 and of the neinei, or large-leaved Dracopliyllmn latifolium, were also used by 

 them ; while the bright yellow leaves of the pingao {Desmoschoenus 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 th(3 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. 



