MAORI ABORIGINAL MANUFACTURES, 491 
contained in the collection exhibited by W. Colenso, Napier. From the 
flax-leaves the natives manufacture excellent baskets or kits, in which 
they convey their provisions and produce. Some are roughly made, 
and others display great taste in the pattern. To the present day most of 
the agricultural and horticultural produce of the Maoris, excepting corn, 
is conveyed to market in these kits, which find a ready sale amongst 
the Europeans in settlements near native villages. 
Very interesting specimens of the native flax, in the different stages 
of preparation for the manufacture of mats, &c, were exhibited by 
W. L. Buller, Manawatu, and by William Davies, Otaki. — The 
floats used by the natives for buoying their fishing nets were made of 
a peculiar light and pithy wood called " Whau " (Entelea arbor escens), the 
specific gravity of which is less than that of cork. Some specimens of 
this wood were exhibited in the Auckland department. 
The tools employed by the Maoris for shaping the hull of their canoes, 
felling trees, &c, were made of various kinds of hard stone, shaped into 
the form of adzes and axes. Quantities of these old tools and weapons 
are found on the sites of old native villages, and in caves and other 
burial places. The stems of their canoes were ornamented with figure- 
heads and carved prows, the execution of which displayed wonderful 
skill and knowledge of art. These carvings were generally 
made of very hard wood, stained black. The pattern was always an 
open worked design, similar to the Indian and Chinese carvings in ivory 
— circles and intersecting curvilinear lines, tastefully and regularly 
arranged. The figure-head was generally a rude copy of a human head, 
the proportions and treatment of which exhibited a surprising degree of 
artistic skill. The Exhibition contained several beautiful models of 
canoes, made by the natives as memorials of some canoe of their ances- 
tors. The paddles are made of various kinds of wood, those made of 
manuka being much esteemed. Their handles are occasionally carved, 
and their form is constructed so as to cause them to enter and leave the 
water easily and smoothly. Models of canoes and paddles w T ere exhibited 
by Sir George Grey ; the Auckland local committee ; and by Donald 
M'Lean Superintendent of Hawke's Bay. This latter model had a special 
interest attached to it. It was made by a native chief of Hawke's Bay, 
and is supposed to be a model of an ancestral canoe called " Takitimu," 
in which the ancestors of the tribe came from Hawaiki to New Zealand. 
The canoe is often referred to in their speeches as symbolic of peace, or 
to announce that the descendants of their ancestors, who came to New 
Zealand in the canoe " Takitimu," would use every effort to preserve 
peace in Hawke's Bay. 
The Maoris, unlike the inhabitants of the Fiji islands, appear to have 
been ignorant of the potter's art. Their drinking vessels and bowls 
weie constructed of gourds, wood, or bark. At great feasts, the chief 
delicacies were placed in large him or calabashes, or in ornamental dishes 
vol. vi. 3 E 
