64 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Astelia (sp.), of kiekie, and of pingao, — collected from opposite and distant 

 habitats ; — some from the deep forests (chmbing 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 

 colom-, — in the rainbow, and in the gorgeous hues of the clouds at sunset ; 

 in some of their bu'ds, — 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 gm-nard, 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 hght- to dull dark-red. 



Eed, 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 (tapu) 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 colom- 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 ^as (towns and forts), for 

 their grave fences and monuments, and for their boundary and other raised 

 cut 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 



