1921 .] 
Best.—Polynesian Mnemonics. 
73 
botanist. On this smooth surface letters were scratched with a stylus 
consisting of a sharp-pointed nail, a pointed piece of shell, or some other 
article. Colenso tells us that natives made a substitute for ink from the 
flax-root, the berries of Schefflera digitata. and those of the kokihi. In 
early days of European settlement we used a very fair writing-ink made 
from bark of the hinau tree (Elaeocar'pus) . Angas describes as follows an 
incident that occurred during one of his journeys : “We met a young 
woman, who accosted us with a letter in her hand, which she begged us to 
take to her brother. . . . The letter was written with a sharp style 
upon a leaf of the New Zealand flax ( Phormium temax) ; it was about two 
feet long and covered with writing on both sides, the characters showing 
out clearly upon the dark and glossy surface of the leaf.’’ 
Hochstetter mentions another use to which the newly acquired art 
was put by natives—-one equivalent to our own habit of marking names 
or initials on trees, stones, &c. When travelling in the interior, a native 
companion noted that the leaves of a Phormium bush near the path had 
been tied together. “ This excited the attention of Kuki ; he untied 
the bush, scanned the leaves singly, and broke into a loud laugh of joy. 
On going up to him I saw that the leaves had all been written on. Kuki 
explained to me that they bore the names of his friends in Whaingaroa, 
who had lately passed that way, and that upon a second leaf a young 
Maori had traced a fond greeting to his beloved.” The author remarks 
that he found similarly inscribed Phormmm, bushes in many parts of the 
country. He also says that the Maori of those days employed numerical 
ciphers for writing, numbers taking the part of letters. The vowels 
a, e, i, o, u were represented by the figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ; h by 6, k by 7, and 
so on. 
Another use to which the Maori soon put the knowledge of letters w r as 
in tattooing. Young men and women had the names of relatives and 
sweethearts tattooed on their breasts and arms in roman letters. This 
was formerly a very common practice. In some cases it caused a certain 
amount of awkwardness, or even regret, as when a sweetheart’s name was 
thus indelibly fixed and a dissolution of partnership occurred later. 
Dieffenbach remarked in 1840 that natives were extremely anxious to 
obtain books, pencils, and writing-paper. While the novelty lasted, reading 
and writing might almost be said to have constituted a mania with the 
Maori. 
During Sir George Grey’s tour through the interior of the North Island 
in 1850 his party found on the path a brief letter written by a travel¬ 
ling party of natives to another party that was following. It read: 
“ 0 friends ! keep on ; we are at Oraka.” This message was truly found 
on the path, for the letters were cut in the bare, padded surface of that 
path. 
Like other folk of the same culture stage, the Maori has a preference 
for a syllabary. In teaching one another the art of writing, natives always 
employ the syllabic method, and ignore teaching of the alphabet in our 
way. Thus, under the letter k a lesson is set as ka , ke, ki, ko, ku, with the 
result that pupils rapidly master the art of writing. 
The art of drawing cannot be said to have been a Maori accomplishment, 
apart from the outline work required by painters of decorative designs, &e. 
Yet, when sketching from nature, the portrayal of men, animals, ships, &c., 
was made known to the natives by early European sojourners on these 
shores, the younger generation often indulged in amateur efforts of the 
kind. Some showed considerable aptitude, as we are informed by Earle 
