320 
The N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology. 
[July 
Section 4.—General. 
Moriori Art, by H. D. Skinner. 
Press Notice ( Lyttelton Times). 
Mr. H. D. Skinner, Lecturer on Ethnology at the University of Otago, introduced 
his lecture on the material culture of the Morioris by saying that the Moriori people, 
who inhabited the Chatham Islands in pre-European times, were virtually extinct, 
a result of the massacres which followed the Maori invasion of the group in 1835. 
Almost the whole of first-hand information about the Morioris was due to the work 
of Mr. Alexander Shand, one of the greatest of all those who, in the last century and 
a half, had done ethnological field-work in the Pacific. Moriori traditions preserved 
by Mr. Shand stated that their ancestors came to the Chathams more than seven 
centuries ago from a land that there was no difficulty in recognizing as New Zealand, 
and that since that time they had been completely isolated. As the Chathams pro¬ 
duced no trees large enough for canoes to be made from them, the claim to isolation 
might safely be allowed. The special interest of Moriori material culture lay in the 
light it threw on the history of Maori material culture and art. jk 
In his opinion, New Zealand, in pre-European time, was divided into two culture 
regions, whose boundaries coincided in a general way with those of the two Islands. 
Between these two regions was a broad intermediate area where the two cultures 
blended. This division into two regions was based solely on the evidence of material 
culture and art, but it was believed that a considerable amount of evidence in support 
might in future be drawn from the study of Maori dialects, and perhaps from the study 
of the physical characteristics of the Maori tribes. 
Moriori material culture might be looked on as a fragment of the southern culture 
of New Zealand. In one or two respects—for example, the peculiar wash-through 
boat—it had developed features of the parent culture until, to a superficial view, they 
appeared entirely new. But even these could be traced to a New Zealand source, 
while in very many classes of manufactured article it was not possible to distinguish 
the Chatham Island article from that made in Otago. They thus had proof that seven 
centuries ago, when the Morioris left New Zealand, the southern culture of New 
Zealand had developed most of the features it presented at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century. The Moriori evidence proved that the difference between the two culture 
regions in New Zealand was ancient. 
It seemed not impossible that future investigations would indicate a relationship 
between the northern culture and the material culture of the Western Pacific, 
especially of the Solomons and the islands and coasts north-west of them. The 
southern culture, on the other hand, seemed to find its nearest relationship in the 
material culture of Easter Island. It seemed probable that that culture had been 
obliterated in intermediate islands by later waves of migration and by the influence of 
intercommunication. 
The lecture was illustrated by lantern-slides showing the arts and crafts of the 
Morioris. Comparative slides demonstrated their close relationship with the arts and 
crafts of the South Island of New Zealand. 
Some Notes on the Language of the Chatham Islands, by Archdeacon 
H. W. Williams. 
(This paper will appear in the Transactions.) 
The Natural Laws of Poetry, by J. C. Andersen. 
The essential difference between poetry and prose is not so much in 
spirit as in mechanism. The difference is not in the arrangement of the 
words, or even in the loftiness of the thought expressed ; # and consequently, 
unless the two are presented on the printed page in a different way, the 
reader is at first unable to say whether poetry or prose is intended. If 
rimed , the riming words will, of course, quickly give the indication, even 
though the words be run on without linear division, as in some space¬ 
saving German editions ; so will the presence of poetic diction ; but many 
batches of blank verse, if printed as prose, will be read as prose. The 
concluding paragraph of 44 The Dream,” by Byron, for instance, might 
well pass for prose. It runs :— 
It was of a strange order, that the doom of these two creatures should be thus 
traced out almost like a reality-—the one to end in madness—both in misery. 
