MAORI ABORIGINAL MANUFACTURES. 493 
extensively employed by them for tools and weapons, is found chiefly 
on the West Coast of the Middle Island. Captain Cook calls the whole 
Island Tovai poenamu, and Te Wahi poenamu, or the Water of the Green- 
stone is a name written in old charts against a lake in the Middle Island. 
The words are corruptions of Te Wake poenamu, or the place of the 
greenstone, by which the Western portion of the Middle Island was 
known amongst the Maoris. In some districts of the West Coast the 
greenstone is found in large masses, and it is somewhat difficult to ac- 
count for the high value placed upon it by the natives, excepting from 
the circumstance that the western portion of the Middle Island was but 
little known to them. Its geographical distance from the centres of 
population, added to the extremely difficult access to it, rendered the 
acquisition of the poenamu no easy matter. Certain it is, however, that 
this greenstone has for a long time been the most highly prized material 
employed by the Maoris in the adornment of their persons. The old 
Maori traditions placed the district from whence they derived their 
supplies about midway down the West Coast of the Middle Island, and 
some interesting particulars of a visit to it by Messrs. Brunner and 
Heaphy are given in an account by the last-named gentleman, con- 
tributed by him to the ' New Zealand Monthly Magazine ' of October 
and November, 1862. Passing by the description given of the wild and 
rugged country through which the explorers had to pass, we come to 
the account of the native settlement at Taramakau : — 
" At Taramakau, eighteen miles from Kararoa, we came upon the 
chief settlement of the Ngaterarua, or Greenstone people, some forty 
souls in all ; and every man, woman, and child indolently engaged in 
sawing, grinding, or polishing greenstone. Taramakau village wasjmlike 
any other native settlement in New Zealand ; every house had a chim- 
ney, and, there being no pigs or other neighbours, fences were unne- 
cessary, and the taros and potatoes grew about and between the houses. 
" That we had at length reached the veritable Greenstone country 
was very evident. Outside the principal house, the chief of the place 
had laid by a slab of poenamu, out of which he was sawing a mere when 
he came to welcome us. In another place, an old man — too old to 
move out to meet us — chanted some sort of song of welcome, and kept 
up a sawing accompaniment. Little children ran about with toy pieces 
of kawa hawa , and brought us smooth pebbles of it as presents ; Heitiki 
— the uncouth figures with red sealing-wax eyes that are worn hung 
round the neck — were receiving the last polish ; and fragments of green- 
stone — odd knobs, and rejected cross-grained pieces — were lying about 
the houses, and down the beach, in a way that would have made a 
Ngaphue crazy could he have beheld it. 
" Along the whole extent of the West Coast— from Cape Farewell 
to Dusky Bay, that is the only Maori community. Some fugitive 
natives are occasionally to be found about the Sounds south of Milford 
