AN ANCIENT PATU

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 147, 7 June 1932, Page 9

AN ANCIENT PATU

MAORI DOMESTIC IMPLEMENT. GIFT TO DOMINION -MUSEUM. Mr W. A. Webster, of Tuna, Taranaki, recently presented to the Dominion Museum a most interesting form of stone-beater or patu. This was a roughly-ground example with a rounded butt end and a rounded body end, the section being nearly circular. As with a similar example recently presented by Mr L, A. Hooker, from the Wanganui river, Mr Webster’s specimen shows traces of red ochre still adhering io it. The length of the specimen is a little over lit., and it has evidently been used vertically as a pestle or kuru for kokowai or red ochre. It may also have been used for beating flax fibre. Little is now known of Hus interesting group of domestic implements of the Maori. There are now in the Dominion Museum something like 66 examples belonging to different groups and sub-groups. Even the correct Mauri mime to use for different kinds of beater is unknown. “Autoru” seems to have been a name given to a pestlo used eudwise to pound red ochre, but “kuru” is also a common name for “pestle.” The black stone used for making these implements is called “uru.” “Patu” seems to have been generally applied to implements used to strike downwards and sileways. “Tuki” is another common term used for a pestle. The remarkable point about these beaters is the fact that most seem to be found in Taranaki; and with a few exceptions most museum examples come from Taranaki. It would seem that working in stone, in particular in the manufacture of these articles, was a speciality of Taranaki Maoris. The beaters were used to beat the flax fibre (muka) so that it became soft and silky in appearance, and could then, be made into the finest garments, but the same implement may also have been used to crush the berries of bush trees for food or pound red ochre. This red ochre was mixed with shark oil and used for paint. Red was a sacred colour, and the Maori large dwellings, canoes, and sometimes their bodies were painted with it.