CoLENSO. — On the Colour Sense of the Maoris. &t 



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 (Porphyria). 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 hquid from the perianths of the flax. Of pure 

 blue colours, however, the Maoris had but few naturally, save in the skyf 

 and (at times) the changeable sea ; in the breast plumage of the swamp 



* See, "Trans. N.Z. Inst.," Vol. Xn,, 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 nebulae, 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 nebul© 

 in Argo Navis, and in Orion, — the Magellanic clouds, etc., etc., 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 intense blue sky — kikorangi (on which and its correlatives a chapter of 

 interesting philological exegesis might be written) must be borne in mind. (I believe that 

 I was the first who discovered, or unearthed, and brought into early notice this term,) 



