AN ANCIENT BOWL.

Northern Advocate, 21 September 1910, Page 7

AN ANCIENT BOWL.

A THEORY UPSET

About forty-two years ago a strange stone bow] was discoverer , near an old j pah, in souk> standing bush at Waipu. * There iiad been a certain amount o<: speculation as t.o its probable history and origin. Lately it was ta'.;on by its ] ownei-, .Mi- of Waipu, to j Auckland, and. It has now been for- ! warded to .Mr A. fhuuikon, Director lof the Dominion Ah:se:im. for examini ation. The bowl is hollowed out of ji J piece of sandstone, light brown in colour, and very hard. It is about afoot long, eight and a half inches wide, and J six inches dee]), and weighs some I twenty pounds. It w;;s supposed that j carvings on the bowl bore some reI semblance to the Moriori patterns j which may be seen on the karaka J trees at the Chatham Islands and this : was take]i as suggesting that it had been wrought, at a vc."*y early period. I -Mr Haririlton, having examined the I carving, points out, however, that the curious nature of its lines is simply a result of the worker who made the I bowl not. having carried out his inton- ; tions as to its decoration. The lines j which appear would, when finished, have represented two supporting figures, one at each end of the bowl, in the same manner as is frequently seen in wooden carved bowls, especially those made at Rotorua, and called "kumetes." The artist had evidently been interrupted by death or some other cause at the point when he had hollowed out the bowl, a:)d had started the carving. The hollow in the hard stone of which the bowl is composed is very well finished, and must have involved a laborious task with the ordinary stone tools. The purpose for which the bowl was intended by its Maori artificer is doubtful, but probably it was used in preparing Hinau berries from which a kind of meal was made, and afterwards baked into cakes. There were, on the other hand, many purposes to which small stone bowls were p,t : such as holding grease and oil f< r lamps, small quantities of red pa/nt used in decoration, or tatooing pain\. Curious holes which pierce the bovl are not artificial, but have been made in the stone by boring worms. There are in the Dominion .Museum about a dozen or more bowls of similar character.