NEW ZEALAND FLAX

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 15 December 1928, Page 11

NEW ZEALAND FLAX

LINK WITH OLD MAORI DAYS

(Written for “The Star” by Oliver Haddon.)

rpilE Phomium-tenax or New Zealand flax is known by the -Maori to be of several species. The two common names used arc -Harcheke and Korari. The fibre is generally known as “mulca.” The name used by. the Maoris of the north being Korari for the long broad leaf and “to” being used when reference is made to the long black stalk which holds the flower. Here in Taranaki the leaf is known by the name of the v stalk /mentioned taking the name used by the northern tribes for the leaf —korari. Early in the eighteenth century merchants’in Port Jackson, Sydney, enter■tained the idea of working the New •Zealand trade, in which timber and •flax were regarded as the chief constituents.

Now Zealand profitable a large and extensive capital was required. In February, 1820, a trial was made in Sydney of the relative strength of English rope and that made of New •Zealand flax by an advertising ropemaker on board the H.M.S. Dromedary, the result being in favour of the New Zealand flax. Five fathoms of New Zealand made rope of three in.ch, fiftyseven yarns, dragged 5 tons 13cwt and broke with a strain of 5 tons 19e\vt_ while three inch English rope of sixty yarns broke with a strain of 4 tons 3 cwt, and a second coil of the same size broke with a drag of 4 tons 4Jcwt. Early in 1827 Cooper and Levy imported into New -South Wales ten tons of dressed flax.

In 1809 the Le Merchants sent from Port Jackson a party of men in a vessel called The Experiment, to be followed later bv another vessel called the Governor Bligh, with the purpose of negotiating with the Maoris of the (Bay of Islands to procure the dressed fibre of the flax. Nothing, However, ■was recorded of this first enterprise to obtain the “muka,” or flax fibre.

According to the statistical returns (New South Wales) for IS2B New Zealand flax to the extent of sixty tons, valued at £2,600, was exported from ■Sydney to England. In IS3O twentyeight vessels of 110 tons each made in the aggregate fiftj'-six voyages to New Zealand. . The total tonnage of vessels that year cleared from New Zealand 5,888 tons. In the same year twentysix vessels of the average burthen of 114 tons made an aggregate of fortysix voyages in'wards, their total tonnage amounting to 4,059 tons.. These voyages were undertaken chiefly for the purpose of procuring flax. In 1830 the Marine Department of the Government of England was purchasing all the flax they could obtain at £45 per acre. After this, however, the trade somewhat fell away as the English manufacturers complained of the shipments being badly cleaned, ill sorted and badly packed. Elax cleaning in these early days of its industry was labourious and badly paid work, the traders being dependent, on native women and slaves. The sep-

During the -winter of 1813 further steps were taken to ascertain the area •of New Zealand flax fields and the best way of rendering them a profitable branch of -mercantile enterprise. This party confined their search entirely in the South- Island, returning to Port Jackson, with a favourable report in which it was stated that they had discovered that the flax was of two species, one 'which grew to about six or seven feet, while the other grew not -more than three or four feet. Both, ’however, it was stated, were strong, but •the shorter was of a finer quality. To Tender the manufacture of the flex in

SOME EARLY TRADING HISTORY

.•nation of the fibre from the leaf was performed by holding the apex of the leaf between the toes. A transverse section was then made through the sueeulent matter at that end by a mussel shell, which was inserted between the substance and the fibre. This effected the separation of the fibre by drawing the shell through the whole leaf. It would take a good cleaner to scrape 15 pounds in weight of the fibre a day; the average cleaner would clean about lOlbs a day, for which he would receive one negro-head of tobacco, a pipe, two sheets of cartridge paper, or one pound of lead.

The gathering and trading in flax, however was in those days not without its dangers. Many ships were raided and burned. The lonely Pakeha agents of Sydney merchants took up their residence among the Maoris in order to trade. Most of the villages had one European resident, called a Pakeha Maori. Some of these men met violent deaths through ignorantly transgressing- the Maori laws of Tapu. Others turned their backs on civilisation for good. There are incidents even where some in less than five years returned to become not the cave-dwelling AngloSaxon of his ancestors, 'but a. roving, fighting. Maori warrior, partaking in all that was in those days dear to the ferocious nature of the Maori when on the war path. In most of the villages flax houses for storing purposes were built averaging 80 to 100 feet in length and from 40 to 50 feet in width.

However, a. new day has dawned. The flax, which, with the secrets that surround its many uses, binds together the Maori and his past, is slowly but surely sinking to oblivion before the rising tide of modern invention and tlie civilisation of the pakeha.