Interesting Acquisitions For Auckland Museum

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 5, 7 January 1936, Page 10

Interesting Acquisitions For Auckland Museum

ETHNOLOGIST’S VISIT SOUTH AUCKLAND, Jan. 3. As a result of a visit to the Wanganui and Taranaki districts by its ethnologist, Mr V. F. Fisher, the Auckland War Memorial Museum has secured a number orf interesting Maori exhibits to add to its collection. From the Wanganui Museum Mi Fisher obtained a good specimen of a Maori timo, a wooden cultivating implement for removing weeds round crops and loosening the soil. In the hands of the Maori the timo is quite a serviceable implement and is still used occasionally in the upper Wanganui district.

Another specimen obtained from the Wanganui Museum was a piece of stone illustrating the Maori method of cutting. By means of a sandstone implement the store has been cut on either side until two grooves almost meet. The final operation, which remains to be done, is the breaking of the stone in two with a sharp blow. A fragment of a stone flax-beater, illustrating the manner in which such an instrument is reduced to the desired shape, has also been secured by Mr Fisher. The flax-beater has been worked in a series of grooves, 'which havo left a number of intervening ridges. In the final operation those would have been battered away with a stone hammer.

An exhibit which has recently been set out in the museum is a panel illustrating the Maori method of making one-piccc fish-hooks from moa bone. The various stages of manufacture, together with the stone rasp and drill points used, make the panel one of educational value.