MOHUNGA-WHAKAIRO."

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 218, 15 September 1925, Page 8

MOHUNGA-WHAKAIRO."

THE MAORI CARVER. I A WONDERFUL ARTIST. BEAUTIFUL WORK WITH STONE TOOLS. - One of the most successful meetings yet held by the Anthropological and Maori eection of the Auckland Institute took place yesterday evening in the University College buildings, Symonds Street. Dr. P. H. Buck, who presided, read a papei that had been prepared by Mr. Raymond W. Firth, M.A., a keen young student, who is at present in the Old Country pursuing his studies in anthropological subjects. Mr. Firth is one of the few young New Zealanders who realise the great wealth of material that there is among the fast disappearing relics ot the Maori race, for the study of the origin of an interesting race whose "whence"' is one of the problems of scientists. Mr. Firth's paper was entitled "The Maori Carver," and to the making of it went much labour and thought. As the writer pointed out it was only from the fragments of many writings and a few scraps of information gleaned from the kaumatua ("elders") that he had been able to put together his observations on the art of Maroi carving. He laid emphasis on the importance of capable investigation of the remnants of the old Maori culture before its last fragments of knowledge passed away with the last of the elders of the people. In his-paper Mr. Firth dealt with the history of carving, described the technique of the carver, and emphasised the importance of the art in the life of the old-time Maori. The social side of the aA, said the paper, had not received the ■attention it deserved fiporri ian anthropological point of view. The interest of the people of the village in their carvings was always very great. Sometimes years were taken over the work of carving the various parts of the tribal whare-runanga, or meeting house, with its highly decorated barge-boards, its doorway, and inside the richly carved poupou, or wall slabs which supported the rafters. Then the ceremony of whaikawa, or removing the tapu from the building was a matter of much moment, and the various rites were carried out with a very striot regard to precedent and due form. The various carvings would be the subject of wide comment among the people, and the work of the carvers would lie keenly criticised, and the meaning of the various figures would be a matter of common knowledge, portraying as they did possibly certain fictitious aea monsters, ancestors, or the gods. Thus the carvings served a very real social purpose, and kept alive the memory of the tribal ancestors, their deeds in war and peace, their sayings, their character. The constant presence of these carved figures amid all the gatherings held in the tribal meeting house caused them to become interwoven with all the impressions and associations from earliest childhood,, and the history of each figure becaime part of the life' of every member of the tribe. No Religious Meaning. Mr. Firth felt that this social side of; the question had not perhaps received the attention it merited. He did not agree with Dr. Newman when he said that'W majority of the Maori carvings were done for religious purposes, but the doctor was right when he said that the slftbs round the meeting hpuse served more than a merely decorative purpose. Though primarily a means of adornment they were ajso indirectly of great social Value to the community. Taking several well-known meeting houses as examples, Mr. Firth referred to certain characteristics which marked the cult of the carver, or ''tqhunga, whakairo." He then went, on to describe the life and training of the carver, who was an honoured personage in the tribe, and received much attention, and after completing some noted meeting house or chiefs pataka (store house! he was richly rewarded according to the times. The work of carving wa*>qked upon as being of quite a dignified character, and T^t^tr occu P ie f l tMr spare time in T™rt ngBOm V V^ PQn or Food,was supplied to the carvers all the time they were at work on the meeting-house or store-house, and if they had been brought from some other . tribe, when they left, for their homes agam they were given gifts of ornaments and valuable garments. The meeting house, "Mataatua," which had just been returned to New Zealand after lying for forty years in the cellars of an unappreciative South Kensington museum, was built for Taipari, of Thames. The carvers came from the Bay of Plenty, and they refused to accept any payment beyond the food and presents they had received from time to time, and they loft to return home. Then Taipari feared that his tribe's reputation for generosity would suffer, and he sent one thousand pounds in single bank notes by his daughter-in-law, who caught up the carvers at Tauranga, apd handed over the old chief's princely gift to the delighted carvers.

No Hasty Work. Mr. Firth explained the loving care which the Maori carver lavished on his Work. The craftsman never begrudged the tjme necessary to give a careful finish to his work. On the many articles. in the Auckland an< l other museums, by far the greater number of which were ornar mented with carving, it was surprising to see how few were carelessly or badly executed, or bore signs of hasty work, This was all the more remarkable when it was realised that, in pre-European times that result was obtained solely with stone tools. Examples of these tools, greenstone, close stone, and obsidian, with bone or wooden mallets, were shown and explained by Dr. Buck. It was obvious, said the. paper, from the fact that implements of daily life, articles which did not depend for their use upon ornamentation, were often well carved, that the pleasure of the work itself was a great motive in such-cases. JJor instance, the Maori would carve bird snares, adze handles, net floats, and many other things i n common use. The arS g a ld u ot , aSeCt tlle ««* °f the artjcle at all, but was done for the pleasure in the carving i t £lf A considerable amount of a H m f;„ paid to the question orthesacVTdne's of the carver's art, and the strict role" and laws with which i< was carried out It was in a word strictly tapu p or "„1 Stance, the chips were never blown off the carving by the breath; the breath was pollution, and the carving was s,mply turned on its side, or the ohius were swept off. Then. it wj sacrilege to t, Be the chips or scraps from the carvings for. the purpose of making a .fire to cook food - After dealing . with the myths connected with carvnig, the pape/went on *£ ■ P * i w • c C -. Carver ' s ™«thods, and showed how i nfln ,t e rouat - jaxns to carve the figures from large

slabs of totara, with no tools other than the stone implements and fire. In making the beautiful lace-like pattern seen on th,e bow and stern pieces of war canoes a drill made of a piece of obsidian or volcanic glass lashed to the end of the stick was used, and th e hole was enlarged and smoothed my means of files made of sandstone.

At the close of a mast interesting paper quite a number of questions were asked, showing the interest the subject created. Dr. Buck with his wide knowledge was able to ably supplement the information. One thing he made clear was that as far as he had been able to judge there was practically nothing symbolical in the Maori's carvings; nothing of what could be construed into a religious signification. Most of the carvings were conventional, and they did not attempt to portray the human form in the perfect shape the Maori saw around him. Not that the Maori did not appreciate that perfect form, but it was apparently correct art not to so portray the human f flce and form. Possibly there was some hidden meaning behind this conventionalised form which Maori art took when it reproduced the -human body in wood. A fine series of lantern slides was shown, the subjects being some very beautiful work from war-canoes and meeting houses. On the motion of Mr. C. E. Major the writer of the paper was accorded a cordial vote of thanks and Dr. Buck was also included for his share in what was a highly successful evening.