GIFT TO MUSEUM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19809, 2 December 1927, Page 12

GIFT TO MUSEUM.

VALUABLE NATIVE CURIOS. RARE AND QUAINT SPECIMENS. Splendid specimens of the native arts of Polynesia and the West Indies are included in the gift of curios recently presented by Mr. Moss Davis to the Auckland Museum. The collection was unpacked yesterday morning. • The curator, Mr. Gilbert Archey, said he was especially delighted with a beautifully-made cere monial club from the Marquesas Islands, and a very fine scries of West Indian adzes, in which the museum had been rather deficient before Mr. Davis' collection had arrived.. The club, which the curator considered to he one of the finest in the museum, has a finely-modelled flat head, and is made of black wood, bearing a beautiful polish. The shallow ornamental carving is most delicately executed, suggesting anything rather than the work of savages. The West Indian adzes, which are the work of the Caribs, of Jamaica, Barbadoes and the isle of St. Vincent, have blades which are flat and pointed in shape. The Polynesian articles also include a ceremonial adzo from Mangaia, in the Cook group. This specimen is much larger than those already in the museum collection, and the handle is carved and pierced in an elaborate manner. Very fine adzes from Tahiti, Fiji and New Caledonia, with two well-carved clubs from Tonga, are also in the collection. New Zenlnnd is represented bv two greenstone meres, one of exceptional length, the other being forpted from a fine piece of mottled stone. There are itwo other meres, a series of stone adzes, and three carved feather boxes.

A very primitive stone adze, the work of .111 Australian aborigine, bears a marked contrast to the more artistic specimens of Polynesian skill. Other articles in the specimens presented are adzes from the Malay Peninsula and British Columbia, while two Eskimo whetstones make a unique addition to what is already a very valuable collection.