Canterbury and Westland. 411 



may Lave been left behind. "When travelling with Maoris along that coast 

 I have, during a rest of a few moments, seen them repeatedly pull out 

 a piece of greenstone and polish or cut it until the mot d'ordre to pro- 

 ceed was again given by me. In the same way the owner of these 

 implements may have set to work, and when starting again either for- 

 gotten them or left them behind when surprised by an enemy. 



When writing the paper, from which so far I have given the prin- 

 cipal contents, I was under the impression that the Moa-hunters had 

 not possessed any polished stone implements, but used only roughly 

 chipped ones, and that the fine series of such implements found in a 

 cache in the Moa-hunter encampment at the Bakaia belonged to a later 

 period, having accidentally been buried there, however the excavations 

 in the Moa-bone Point Cave, of which I shall offer the principal results 

 in the sequel, have established the fact beyond a doubt that the former 

 Moa-hunters used both kinds. Thus it is evident that we cannot 

 divide the former inhabitants of New Zealand into two distinct races, 

 from their having exclusively used unpolished or polished stone imple- 

 ments corresponding with the palaeolithic and neolithic periods of 

 Europe. To the former belonged the now extinct Tasmanian abori- 

 gines, possessing only crudely chipped stone implements, whilst the 

 Australians, standing not much higher in the scale of civilization than 

 the Tasmanians did, generally used only polished stone implements. 

 Exception must however be taken as to the manufacture of spear 

 heads, used in Northern Australia, being simply chipped from pieces of 

 obsidian and of the stone implements of some of the Natives of 

 "Western Australia, which are of a very primitive type.* 



Therefore, if a race so much inferior to the Maoris, as the Natives 

 of Australia are, possess and possessed polished stone implements, it is 

 not to be wondered at that a race so far advanced as the Moa-hunters 

 should also have possessed them, as I shall show in the sequel. The 

 Morioris or Native inhabitants of the Chatham Islands have used until 

 quite lately, both polished and unpolished stone implements, according 

 to the work to be performed by them. Eor the purpose of manufac- 

 ture, polished stone tools were necessary, whilst for cutting up whales, 



* " The hatchets found in Western Australia appear to point to one of the lowest types of creation, 

 their stone implements being so primitive, that, unless the stones were found in gum and fixed to 

 handles, I scarcely think it would be credited that they had ever been used for the important duties 

 they had to serve." 



On the Stone Implements of Australia, etc. by Jas. C. Cox, M.D., F.L.S. Proceedings of Linnean 

 Society of3"ew South Wales, Vol I, Page 22. 



