A GENEROUS GIFT

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 122, 16 February 1921, Page 7

A GENEROUS GIFT

THE OTAGO UNIVERSITY MUSEUM

By Telcaraph—Preiw Ak.«/wlaH«4 ' Dunedin, February 15. The Otago University Council had placed before its meeting to-day particulars of it very valuable gift which had been made to it by Mr. Justice Chapman and his family. J udge Chapman has placed at its disposal his extensive and valuable ethnographic collection, which is one of the most important private collections in New Zealand. The Maori section includes a large number of adzes, chisels ami other stone implements, a great variety of fishing tackle in stone and bone, a number of finished greenstone articles, and several pieces of worked soapstone, all from Centre Islnitd and the shores of Foveaux Strait. Another section consists of similar pieces collected on the beaches about Dunedin, and there is also a considerable amount of material from other parts of New Zealand. A number of articles included in the gift have been figured in Hamilton’s Maori Art and other publications, and many are of great scientific importance. Notable among those are throe adzes found by Judge Chapman below a moa bone bed at Shag River, adzes which demonstrate that the first inhabitants of Otago were Polynesian, at any rate in material culture. Ihe greater'part of the collection was found by Judge Chapman himself and by members of his family. "The foreign ethnographic section includes a fine series of Australian aboriginal implements in e-tono and glass, an interesting collection of European stone-age implements, and a number of fine pieces from the Western Pnci tic.” “The Maori section of Otago University Museum now takes its place among the four most important Maori collections in existence."