THINGS THAT SPEAK. IN THE OLD MUSEUM.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 41, 18 February 1911, Page 9

THINGS THAT SPEAK. IN THE OLD MUSEUM.

RELICS OF MAORI TIMES. POORLY, SADLY HOUSED. (By "Eareye.") One stop through, and the great, blood-red Maori "Dreadnought," a warcanoe from the Wairarapa, leaps at the visitor. Its noble lines emphasise the dinginess and drabness and meanness of that room in the Dominion Museum. Richard the Lionheart, in the German prison, was not more out of sorts with the grey walls that held him. for ransom. That royal canoe once bounded over leaping waves on the high seas, when strong brown arms kept time to th 6 melodious Maori "sea chanties," but it has long been tapu. It had a mishap in Cook Strait with precious freight, seven chiefs, crossing from North to South. A storm smote the boat, and the seven chiefs perished. The canoe, hewn from the trunk of a forest king many decades ago, has survived, but it rests in a species of mouldering tomb — tho old Colonial Museum, which changed its name, but not its natur*. IN WAR AND PEACE. In this Maori room ono may go back to years before the first sight of Tasman's white-winged ship compelled the terrified Maoris to say their native prayers for safe deliverance from the crowded cases and stands take the gazer on through tho Maori era of stone, wood, and bene, right into tho times monstrous albatross of their fancy. The when tho white man's iron and the white man's liquor changed him. Here are relics of valour and vanity almost side by side. Here is a beautiful bon© weapon, a patu (resembling a mere) left by the fierce To Kooti in Taranaki, probably after it had unceremoniously introduced death to a few people, and not far away is a wooden comb,' which once served to untangle some brown beauty's tresses'. The fishermen's art is abundantly illustrated. The pakeha enthusiast endows the mute fish with , diabolical cunning. Some white anglers think that a groper •will grin and caper away if he. sees the point of a hook sticking through the bait. Then the trout has been allotted an intelligence almost equal to man's, but small boys, who do not pay license fees, persist in proving that the trout is only a fish alter all and not a master of arts. The Maori did not credit fish with any remarkable reasoning powers; he pulled them out with a wooden hook when he had nothing better. When he , had the time and opportunity he carved a piece of bone. Ono of the deadly insults was to turn a bit of a slain enemy's bone into a fish- j hook and throw the fact at deceased's fellow-tribesmen. Thus ono little hook has brought death to more men than fish. Some human-bone fish-hooks may b© seen in tho Museum to-day. A SAD CONGESTION. All this treasure clamours for a, worthy housing. Priceless things are huddled together, piled pell-mell. It almost looks as if the Department of Internal Affairs has accepted Longfellow's ad vies : "Let tho dead past bury its dead." Some of the relics are halfburkd — th& quaint flags once flaunted by Maoris in their strongholds or on the field of battle. This, warrior bunting is mostly rolled up, for lack of space. Other things are wholly buried, packed away out of sight because the old building has no room to display them. Hence the Maori room is more like a bric-a-brac shop than a mansion of the Past. Decades and centuries have to bo fumbled up in that little place. The remains of the past are strewn on the lap of the present, hig-gledy-piggledy. THE ARMOUR OF TITORE. , Ijl ~ a little case lies tn « rusted armour of Titore, a chief of the Nga Puhi Away back in 1834, H.M.S. Buffalo (Captain Sadler) visited tho northern waters in quest of kauri logs to bo converted into masts. Titore received a gift of axes and other pakeha goods, and was gently told that some kauri would be acceptable to the Buffalo. Ho set his men to work, and they had a keen delight in the now gleaming steel. Kauris crashed down, and some beautiful trunks were floated out through the creeks to the warship. It seemed good then to Titore to have a letter written thus to King William IV. : — ' "King William,— Here am I, tho friend of Captain Sadler. The ship is full, and is now about to sail. Do you therefore examine the spars, whether they are good or whether they are bad. Should you and the French quarrel, here are some trees for _ your battleships. lam now beginning to think about a ship for myself ; a native canoe is my vessel, and I have nothing else. The native canoes upset when they are filled with potatoes and other matters for your people. I have put on board the Buffalo a mere pounamu and two garments ; these are all, the things which New Zealanders possess. If I had anything better I would give it to Captain Sadler for you. This is all mine to you — mine, Titore, to William, King of England." The Royal response was a gift of shining armour to loyal Titore, for tho head, body, and arms. There is no evidence that this plate armour was worn in battle by its owner, like tho suit of chain-armour given to the warrior Hongi by King George IV., but it had, nevertheless, a career far from colourless. FLAGS AND WEAPONS. On© may pause and ' ponder by flags around which warm blood poured. The Maoris early caught the white man's fervour for a fighting flag. There is one partly unfurled, and its history is as black as the cross of black cloth •which fanatic Maori hands sewed on to the field of coarse linen. This was a dag which the fierce Hau-haus hoped to flourish over the ruins of tho white man's domination of those islands. It is believed that the cloth for the black cross was taken from the garments of the Rev. Volckner, whom the Hau-haus hanged to a tree. Drawings of various historical Maori flags, unhappily parcelled up in the congested cases, have been made, but it is hoped to show the designs some day in one of the museum bulletins. About as old as the Hau-hau flag is a double-barrelled percussion gun, from the Wanganui district. The stock is elaborately carved except for ono circular patch whicn excites curiosity. The wily Maori owner had though of his cheek ; he had left a smooth place for his face when tho gun was to be in the firing position. It was - a case of utility first, art second, the natural order. A Tewhatewha or paiaka, a wooden P-shaped weapon, with hawk-feathers tied below the blade, looks innocent now under the glass, but it figured grimly once in a treacherous murder in the time of William IV., 1832. Te Mautaranui, chief of the Ngatiawa, was invited by his father-in-law to visit him at To Reinga Falls. The younger man was warned to be on guard against treachery, but he cavalierly said. "My footsteps never turn back. I am a full r fledged hawk ; I have left the sheltering nest." He was fatally struck on the head with that paiaka from behind by Tuakiaki. Tho blade portion of a, paiaka served only to give weight to th© weapon : the business edge was the back. The func-

tion of the feathers was to blur an opponent's vision while tho wioldor of tfio paiaka, was sparring for a good- striking chance. Here, too, may be seen a whalobono sceptre or staff of olKce, curiously carved. It was once held by the terrible Poki, of Chatham Islands, an insatiate cannibal, with a sweet tooth. His fancy chiefly turned to babies or very young children. This horrible monster was a pitilccs persecutor of the gentle Morioris. Ho cut them down like sheep in the lonely Chathams.