MAORI CARVINGS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 115, 18 May 1933, Page 5

MAORI CARVINGS.

MANAIA REPRESENTATION. INSTITUTE LECTURES. The conclusion has been reached' by Mr. Gilbert Archey, director of the Auckland War Memorial Museum, that the manaia, the curious figure "which appears so frequently in Maori carvings, is none other than a highly conventionalised form of the human body with the human head seen in profile, and that the long bird-like beak has resulted from the drawing out of the lower part of the face in order to complete the spaces in the design. The subject was dealt with by Mr. Archey in the course of an illustrated lecture before members of the Auckland Institute, over which Mr. A. 6. I/ann presided, last night. Mr. Archey explained that the manaia, which_ was always carved in profile, had previously been held to represent a "bird man," or human with a bird's head, such as appeared in the art of the Solomon and Easter Islands, where definite ceremonies or competitions had been asso-' ciated with that theme. The cult of the "bird man" did not exist among the Maoris. The manaia, in his opinion, did not represent a ."bird man." It represented the human head seen in profile. Mr. Archey explained also a theory that the Maori spiral had evolved from the combination of curves formed by the interlocking beaks of two manaias. The explanations were supplemented by a series of lantern slides prepared from photographs of carvings in the museum. Papers on the results of a five days' cruise from Auckland to Wellington last year in the Royal research ship Discovery H. were delivered by Messrs. R. A- Falla and A. W. B. Powell, of the museum stafl:. These lectures also were accompanied by lantern slides, as well as a short cinematograph film. It was stated that already from a small portion of the marine material collected it had been possible to identify 25 new species, mainly of mollusca.