FLOTSAM AND JETSAM.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 282, 28 November 1931, Page 13

FLOTSAM AND JETSAM.

j|\l THE MUSEUM STOREROOM.

WORLD-WIDE COLLECTION.

STUDIES IST CONTRASTS,

Hverv house seems to have a lumberroom, a place where odds and ends may be kept until a use can be found for them. To this the War Memorial Museum, with its array of curiosities, is no exception. Behind the scenes it has its store room, and to the lo"\ ei of orderly disorder perhaps this room is the.most interesting part. Flotsam and jetsam representing various parts of the , world are brought together and left. There is a queer old idol, of which the ritrin is uncertain, meeting the sombre rraze from across the way of a medieval bishop. The mitred figure stands on the floor .near a mousetrap, while the idol is on a case full of New Guinea war clubs. Behind that again the stony eyes - of the bishop hold the regard of the . typical, grotesque, insistent stare of a Maori carved face. Medley of Spears and Weapons. In one corner is a pile of Maori house carvings, some well preserved, some decayed and defaced. In front is stacked, like wood set to dry in a yard, Maori paddles and agricultural implements, while on the ground in front, most prominently, are two small canno nballs. One of these, touched with the foot, rolled until brought to rest by a great spear from one of the Pacific islands. The walls are lined with cases. There is more in the room than the cases can • possibly holdl With their ends sticking out over the edges of the cases are all sorts of-spears, used by all sorts of peoples, for all sorts of uses, at many different times. Yonder are the weapons of the black fellow, crude yet of strangely delicate balance. Most of the South African "stuff," as it is familiarly called by those who handle it, is in the show cases outside, but alongside the Australian ieallection is a Zulu stabbing assegai, that weapon without which T'chaka, the king, made it death for his warriors to return-after battle. ..Gilbert Island Sword. The majority of the spears of the Pacific Islands are of hardened, barbed wood, rather than metal. But it seems: that humanity has never needed to be shown how to make weapons cunningly cruel. There is a sword from the Gilbert Islands, cunningly carved and * wrought ofieart of palm -wood; but the "blade" is made to do terrible injury. Jagged sharks' teeth have been sown in -a spiral up the shaft from a barbed point, and when the thrust has been made, the sword has turned, so that the wfeapon could, scarcely 'be withdrawn from the wound. Nearby is a great pole scime 30 feet long, so balanced and pointed' that it would have tremendous driving force in a charge. .These weapons are stacked in one corner, like clothes line props waiting ifdr washing day. At their foot are queer liit-Ie dubs with knobby ends. They are Fijian throwing clubs, or "ulas." ' A fiittle further along the floor is a. 'card-.' ; ; iboard' box, and in it is a' strange col- | j&ction. A headless Egyptian deity .in % rubs shoulders with a preferred trap-door spider. Both are facing some Maori sinkers, while just over the edge of the box grin a couple of human skulls. A Boy's Delight. That room would delight a boy—if hoys still seek lancewood in the bush for hows, and dried bracken for arrows. . • . The hows are things of beauty. When bent they sing, just as did the great war bow -.of Ulysses -long ago, when, "he returned to Ithaca, disguised as a beggar. These are utility bows, used, in the jungles of New Guinea. Their strings are, some of them, made of Binews Wound together, and the wood is bored at-either end to allow of the passage of. . the stringing. The arrows are .of. light wood, carefully carved and very deadly. As-;with the spears and the swords,-they ate also barbed and decorated. If they .are less romantic than the ibow of fke Wanderer, carelessly piled there on a dusty case top, they yet seem to tell a story of mysterious sudden death. That material in the cases has been catalogued and examined with care. In one there is a host of Maori curios, very many adzes, a great variety of 6inkers. Curiously, all the fish-hooks are barbed, credo though the barbing may be. One wonders how ever they caught fish. Which of these might the mighty Maui . have used, when his catch was Te Ika a Maui (the North Island ?) Great Task for Staff. _ And so on through the Polynesion section, one might pass, and wonder with idle curiousity what each article was -used for. Yonder is a drum, and when the taut lizard skin over one end was beaten .the whole room was filled with , sound. Into how many savage hearts has such music smitten terror? In the corners 'between the cases are more "Pears and shield's, and on the floor beside a piece of whalebone vertebrae, still red from being used for ochremixing, there are two most delicately carved lime spatula e from New Guinea. * But though there is such apparent confusion in this room, the staff of the museum are busy sorting and cataloguing, and creating order; but it is a. tremendous task, and there are a thousand and one jobs to be done.