Canterbury and Westland. .423 



passage, page 653, in the article " On Kemains of Primitive Art in the 

 Bridger Basin of Southern Wyoming," by Professor Jos. Leidy. " I 

 may take the opportunity of speaking of a stone implement of the 

 Shoshone Indians, of so simple a character that had I not observed 

 it in actual use, and had noticed it amongst the material of the buttes, 

 I should have viewed it as an accidental spawl. It consists of a thin 

 segment of a quartzite boulder, made by striking the stone with a smart 

 blow. The implement is circular or oval with a sharp edge, convex on 

 one side, and flat on the other. It is called a ' teshoa,' and is employed 

 as a scraper in dressing buffalo skins. By accident I learned that the 

 implement is not only modern, as I obtained one of the same character, 

 together with some perforated tusks of the elk, from an old Indian 

 grave, which had been made on the upper end of a butte, and had 

 become exposed by the gradual wearing away of the latter." 



The figure of this " teshoa" a name which I wish to adapt for similar 

 stone implements in .New Zealand, is so like one of the latter that it 

 would be impossible to distinguish them if placed side by side. At the 

 same time I wish to observe that the description and figures of the 

 flint-flakes, roughly chipped, found in Indian graves, etc., are so much 

 like those obtained in the Moa-hunter encampment that there is no 

 doubt that the former aborigines of New Zealand employed the same 

 mode of manufacture and used the same form of rude stone implements 

 as the primitive races of Europe and North America. 



No polished stone implements were found in any of the kitchen 

 middens, but a number were obtained scattered over the fields after the 

 ground had been ploughed. They were mostly manufactured from 

 chertose rocks ; Mr. Cannon however found a considerable number to- 

 gether in a cache Some of these stone implements are of con- 

 siderable size and finish, some are partly finished, others only 

 chipped in the form of adzes and chisels. Also a few greenstone 

 (Nephrite) adzes were found in the same field, but as in the kitchen 

 middens of the Moa-hunters never any implement made of that material, 

 or chips, or flakes were obtained, we must conclude that the green- 

 stone was not yet discovered at that time ; it is therefore evident that 

 the few worked Nephrite implements are of later origin, the Maori 

 track for the crossing place of the Rakaia passing over the same piece 

 of ground. Discussions as to the possibility of prehistoric people 

 having both chipped and polished stone implements in use have often 

 taken place in Europe. Judging from the implements of the Moa- 

 hunters it is beyond a doubt that they used both, and thus it can truly 



