MAORI CARVERS

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 47, 25 February 1933, Page 10

MAORI CARVERS

THE SCHOOL AT ROTORUA

The precious art of Maori carving, often lamented as if in danger of being lost, is being preserved by the skilled Native workers at the Maori Arts and Crafts School at Rotorua. A good example of present-day achievement is the carving for the meeting house at Otaki, with which the school has been entrusted From BOlid bloaks of totara, each specially selected from trees on the sunny side of the forest, the skill of the Native has fashioned a huiidfed pieces, each with its ornate and symbolical design. The work is all done by hand, for the only tools to be seen in the school are the adze, chisels of different sizes and shapes, and mallets of solid whale-bone, which do their job very, fefifectively. •Among the workers is an old Maori who rai'jed tit the Chriß.tchurch Exhibition in 1900-7; Hfl has no superior with the adze. Most of the pieces for the meeting house at Otaki have been completed, and nowaw&it transport. The Ngati-Raukawa tribe at_ Otaki can claim -descent from every tribe in New Zealand, the Arawas nnd the liast Coast Maoris predominating Maintaining their ancient pride in lineag»° the > carvers have embodied this tradition id the design for the house. It will be what is known as "universal." The nex*i big task will be the carving for Te Aute Lollegd. The wood is already seasoned for this. It is probable, too, that the school win be entrusted with the carvin" for the meeting -house at Waitangi, whieii is to be erected before the ceuteuary celebrations in 1940.