THE OTAGO MUSEUM

Evening Star, Issue 21890, 29 November 1934, Page 9

THE OTAGO MUSEUM

INTCRESTHKi AWHHWTHHIB mm Atn south scas material The Otago University Museum’s specimens of Maori greenstone pieces are mounting steadily in number, recent acquisitions including an interesting variety of adzes, chisels, and gouges. . ■ .. A striking example of tortoiseshell work may be seen in a disc of tradacna shell presented by Sir Louis Barnett. The disc, which hails from Bugotu, in the Eastern Solomon Islands,_ reveals, craftsmanship of almost miraculous fineness and accuracy, and is undoubtedly a piece as valuable as ever came from that group. Mr Ellis Sinclair has given a fish hook point and a human tooth perforated in the same manner as the greenstone implements. From the East Cape has come an old stonecnt lintel recovered from a store pit. This class of object is a great _ rarity, and the piece now on view, which was purchased through the Eels Fund, has the appearance of having been carved with stone tools of considerable age. Mr George Rae has continued to send in gifts of Central Otago material, his latest consignment being some tapa cloth that he discovered in the same clffft where the precious huia feather

box was found about eighteen months ago. An anonymous donor has presented an interesting collection of objects from the New Hebrides and the Solomon Islands, while Miss Hope Birt has given a wooden fish hook with a human bone point of a type that must once have been extremely common in Otago. A flax kilt from the North Island has been presented by Mrs C. Samson, and, through the Fels Fund, the institution has acquired a necklace of thirty-seven human teeth from Tokomaru Bay. • From the same region comes a stone image made from some kind of volcanic rock. It has been painted red, tbo ceremonial colour of the Maoris, and presumably it represents the god of harvest. Partly by exchange and partly by purchase the Hawaiian collection has been augmented by about forty pieces, and Mr and Mrs H. E. Maude have added further interesting material to their list of gifts from the Gilbert Islands. Mr W. Mirow, moreover, has sent in a number of fine and rare pieces illustrating the culture of North-eastern New Guinea. Two striking Maori mats arc the gifts of Mr James Roberts.