PECULIAR CRAFT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 175, 25 June 1926, Page 7

PECULIAR CRAFT.

CORACLE IN MUSEUM

[By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.] AUCKLAND, June 24. When Julius Caesar invaded Britain ho found the natives on the sea inlets using a queer kind of craft mado of osiers covered with skins. This was tho coracle and the astute Roman was so impressed with its handiness that he "adopted tho idea and used a number in his Spanish campaign. What Is perhaps more remarkable still is the fact that tho coracles are still actually in use on tho Severne and other rivers of Wales, “a far cry from that sort of thing to our modern high-speed motor-launch,” said the curator of the Auckland Museum (Mr Gilbert Archey) when showing ono to a reporter. Thanks to the generosity of two keen ethnologists, Messrs George Graham and R. W. Firth, the museum was able to get ono of the actual craft now in use. It is not an easy’ matter to get one as the men who own them are loth to part with them and, owing to some old superstition, you never see any abandoned coracles lying about. When a man dies there is more or less bad luck attending his coracle, and it is never allowed to survive its defunct owner.