Museum Notes

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22661, 16 March 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

Museum Notes

THE MAORI AND GREENSTONE

Greenstone is a familiar material to most i New Zealanders. Appearing frequently in jewellers’ shops, it is valued there for the same reasons that it was valued by the Maori—for the beauty and hardness of the stone. To a people like the Maori, whose tools were of stone, there was no material more valuable than greenstone. In lact, it became the most valuable of Maori property, and the nearest approach to “money” in their system of trade.

Greenstone was the Maori gold, and the Maori prospectors would shirk no hardships to obtain it. Like gold, too, it was found only in certain remote areas, and was scarce even there.

The only source of the true hard greenstone (nephrite) was a limited area on the West Coast between the Arahura and Teremakau rivers. A softer, more translucent variety of greenstone (serpentine), known to the Maoris . as tangiwai (tearwater), was found round the head of Milford Sound. From these two remote localities came all the treasures of worked which were found among the Maoris from North Cape to Bluff, and which now are scattered among the museums of the world. From all parts of New Zealand, land or sea trails led to the greenstone country. From the North Island came canoe expeditions to barter or fight for

(By R. S. Duff)

greenstone; the latest of these was the invasion of Te Rauparaha, whose Taranaki fighting-men overran the east coast as far south as the Rakaia, and the west coast as far as the Grey. . _ Perhaps the most interesting were the overland expeditions commonly made by the Maoris of Kaikoura, Kaiapoi, Banks Peninsula, and Temuka. During the autumn it was the habit of parties, from each of these places to travel over the alpine passes known to them.

living on eels and-woodhens taken on the way, and to bring back heavy loads of the raw stone. Occasional finds of small boulders would be made in the river-beds, the situation of these being revealed to the tohunga in a dream, but for the most part the material was shattered off the enormous rocks. This was done by constructing an enormous hammer from a beam of wood and a knotty round greenstone boulder.. Thirty men were required to lift and fall one of these hammers with ropes, when Hakopa to Ata o Tu, a famous Kaiapoi chief, visited the West Coast on one occasion.

The tedious task of gradually grinding this raw greenstone into adzes, meres, tikis, pendants, and so on was a favourite occupation with the old men of the village to which the stone was taken. At Kaiapohia several of these old fellows had each his particular'sandhill. Here he would <squat in the sunshine, grinding away at his greenstone, and watching from his look-out for the arrival of important visitors or foes. After grinding all day a chief would carry his work back to his house. When overcome by sleep, he would still retain his hold on the grindstone and, starting up at intervals in the night, would renew his self-imposed task.

We can compare this with the various European methods of making the time pass pleasantly. Maori life moved on pleasantly to the slow rhythm of stone. Hastened by no clock, the Maori could in bis own time produce the perfection of a mere, tiki, or finelyfinished adze.

The illustration includes three greenstone meres, a greenstone adze, and a large piece of greenstone on which some old gentleman had commenced his leisurely