MAORI CRAFTSMANSHIP.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 285, 1 December 1928, Page 10

MAORI CRAFTSMANSHIP.

ZANE GREY'S FISHING LINE.

WOULD HOLD A TAKIWHA."

WORK OF AX OCTOGENARIAN,

' The craft and cunning of his ancestors in fashioning things from Nature are not lost to Poitutu. His nimble fingers were employed on the strip® of muka or flax fibre yesterday when a "News" representative paid him a visit at Normanby (says the Taranaki "News"). A fine old man is Poitutu, strong and straight, quick and supple despite his grey locks and his eighty odd years. Zane Grey, the American fisherman tourist, will this season have the strongest, toughest and most enduring mako or swordfish line he has ever used. That, because Poi is so cunning a worker, t

Trousers of the pakeha Poi has never worn. What is more, he never will wear them. His thighs were girt in cloth like a Highland kilt, or piu piu of old. He sat legs crossed, pipe alight and face, aglow with busy happiness, on the hard board amidst heaps of flax. Pakehaa and Maoris, approached. him, but he merely lifted his eyes from his industry until the Maori accompanying ithe visitors, Mr. Oliver Haddon, a relative of Poi, after a preliminary korero, introduced tha pakehas.

Marked courtesy, without palaver, was one of Poi's characteristics. He agreed to show the pakehas some of the secrets of the flax working in the particular task he was engaged upon. He was making a strong fishing line to hold the biggest fish in the seas of New Zealand—except only the whale which is no fish! It is four ply, muka or kapai New Zealand flax, hand made in 1928 as made a century ago before the pakeha came to Ao-tea-roa.

Eyes shining, lips smiling, and an occasional puff of smoke to relieve the picture, the Maori selected several find strands of creamy, silken flax fibres from a big bundle. It had been seasoned with the juices of trees and was specially tested, Mr. Haddon interpreted.

Horny hands, but lithe fingers, rolled the several fibres, pressed closely upon the side of Poi's bare calf. He rolled them like a housewife rolling dough until tlie several fibres were as one— round and symmetrical. t The smile increased, and the puffs of smoke were emitted more frequently. See, one unit of the fishing line, one of the four "plvs." There were many yards of the finished article, but many more were t.> come. The strands were fitted into and between the loose ends of the long line; cleverly fitted like a .wood-joiner's join. Poi moistened his hands; the four strands were laid on the slanting calf; constant pressure and rolling united the four "plys" into one

line of wonderfully even proportions. It was the magic, the secret of his ancestors. One moment four strands lay on the muscular leg; next moment they were one, strong and true; better than the machine-made shark lines j strong enough to hold a taniwha!

And so, yard after yard, adding to the. long line, the secrets of his ancestors were woven in the fishing line for the benefit of the modern tourist-fisherman. Several hundred yards are yet to come. When the work of Poi is completed it will be forwarded to Kawakawa, Russell, for the hands of the American "big" fishehnan, Zane Grey. The muka, seasoned and prepared, will

last and improve with use and immersion in the sea. Its strands will pack and shrink tighter Upon themselves, and not as the lines of the pakeha are wont to 1 do. Mr." Oliver Haddon arranged last ; year with Zane Grey to secure a Maori; hne 1 from one of the very few Maori; workmen to whom the secrets df gen- } erations are still familiar. Poi works [ busily on; Zane Grey arrives in a few days. Makos and takeke tonga (the! swordfish) are at home in the Moana Nut A Kiwa (Pacific) and Poi's muka whiri, like that of his ancestor Maui, will holji them all.