MUSEUM HOUSE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 283, 29 November 1937, Page 5

MUSEUM HOUSE.

RELICS FROM PAST.

ISLAND AND N.Z. CURIOS. GIFTS FROM QUEEN SALOTE. You would not know the house for anything out of the ordinary if you passed it casually. If you lived close to it you still would not notice it. because as far as one can see it is just one among many others. Yet the house is a veritable museum. On the walls you will see original oil paintings by Lindauer —heads of Maori chiefs. In other rooms, tucked away high on the walls, where the average visitor would never notice them, you would see other paintings valued by competent authorities in Auckland at a figure which would astound the layman. On an old-fashioned sideboard there are antique vases, part of a one-time collection whose gathering took years. The home is that of Mrs. L. Kronfeld, who, with her late husband, came to New Zealand towards the end of last century. The collections were made by her husband, who was passionately interested in the ways and relics of the past. Maori and Island Curios. In the house are more than paintings and vases. Rare things from the,lsland* and from old New Zealand lie about the rooms, fill drawers, are hidden in inconspicuous cases. They look as though they had not been noticed, or even thought about for years. On a table fare greenstone adzes and axeheads. while pendants of the same jade hang on their flaxen strings from this and that place on the wall.

One carved canoe paddle immediately attracts attention. It is made of whalebone and is much longer than the ordinary paddle made of that substance. It is 591 inches long and weighs about 121b. The blade is 24$ inches in length, with a width of 5$ inches. The head of the handle is oddly carved, while there is further carving just where the blade meets the baft.

Dr. Peter Buck (Te Ran-ri Hiroa). at present director of the Bishop Museum. Honolulu, who has known the Kronfeld family for years, said he had never seen one like it. Mrs. Kronfeld said the paddle came into her husband's possession over 40 years ago. Samoan High Chiefs Head-dress. In a case which contains half a dozen Maori axeheads is the head-dress of a Samoan high chief, a "pale fuiogo." to give it its native name. Mrs. Kronfeld explained that this was worn in the old days on ceremonial occasions. There were not a great number of them left now, or rather not many of those actually used in the early days. A tamboua, an Island ornament which the natives wear round their necks, would attract a good deal of attention if only because it was the gift of Salote, Queen of Tonga, to a member of Mrs. Kronfeld's family. Mrs. Kronfeld had the Queen of Tonga

living with her while Salote was being educated. Scarcely a ship from the Islands arrives but it brings some gift from Salote to Mrs. Kronfeld. This tatubuoa consists of a whale's ttM>th. into each end of which a hole has been let. A cord of plaited coconut fibre passes round the neck and is fastened through the holes. The tooth is about six inches long and an inch thick. This curio has a history of its own. Mrs. Kronfeld said, and to the native mind, she added, it would have an added sanctity as it was a gift from Salote. There are cases and cases of curios just locked up and put away. Odds and ends from here, there and everywhere in the Pacific are lying about. The story of some of them Mrs. Kronfeld knows; about others she is ignorant, because the gathering of them was the interest of her husband, who is dead.