RARE MAORI RELIC

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21763, 31 March 1934, Page 8

RARE MAORI RELIC

HUMAN BONE BRACELET GIFT TO THE MUSEUM TE; RAUPARAHA'S RAIDS A Maori artifact, which is believed to be unique, and which has a most interesting, if gruesome, history, has been presented to the Auckland War Memorial Museum by Mr. A. A. Grace, of Nelson. It consists of 16 carefullyshaped /pieces of human bone, each about 2in. long and Jin. wide, strung upon a flax string. The. museum possesses no similar Maori y object, and the director, Mr. Gilbert Archer, has been unable to find anything of the kind described in the literature relating to Maori arts and crafts. He lias been told that pieces of a rather similar bone necklace are in the Southland Museum, but efforts to obtain information about them have so far been unsuccessful. Maori necklaces, which are much less commonly worn than ear or neck pendants, usually consist of human teeth or bone/imitations of them, or of small tubular 'sea-shells. However, the pieces of bone in question were stated by their former Maor,i owner to ha\ e formed part of two bracelets intended to be worn by a woman of rank, particularly when, taking part in a haka. Mr. Archey is not aware of any other in- / stance of bracelets being worn in this way, or, indeed, by Maoris at ah. Slaughter of Southern Tribes The name given to the object by its owner was "taiari," which is merely a noun' formed from the Maori verb meaning to hang or suspend. Mr. Archey/s examination shows that tne pieces were undoubtedly cut from human leg bones. The string holes pere bored most ingeniously with stp ne tools in the old Maori fashion. The peculiar shape of the pieces bears a strong analogy with that of various bone, ivory and stone pendants in the museum collections, and probably was derived from that of "a sperm whale's tooth. . "I present this interesting Maori relic exactlv as it was given to me for safekeeping 30 years ago by Karepa Te Whetu, chief of the Jsgati-Koata tribe," Mr. Grace wrote. ''Karepa le Whetu was the elder son of le W hetu (The Star), who was one of the famous —or infamous—Te Rauparaha s lieutenants? and took part in his overlord's kids against the Maoris ot Banks Peninsula and Kaiapoi in looU. ,Te Whetu, the father, lived on D'TJrville Island, in Cook Strait, and no doubt presented the bracelets (there •were two originally) to his wife as a memento of his victories. Relic Removed From Grave "When she died they were buried with her. Years afterward, when her two sons, Karepa Te Whetu and Karepa Tenoi, went to excavate her bones and t '■». place them in a secure hiding-place V, where they could not be desecrated, ''they found in the grave the pieces of tie bracelets which their mother had worn. These they took away, and Karepa Te Whetu kept them in a box, in which he placed other prized relics which were tapu, or sacred It would be abcut the year 1903 or 1904 that he brought me pieces of the taiari, Btrung into a single bracelet, which .he asked me to take care of, since his two young ones (both now dead) were accustomed to play with them, and had lost some of the segments. He ■ therefore asked me- to take care of the taiari, as it was extremely tapu, and he knew it would be safe in my keeping. „ , " Karepa te Whetu, of whom some account will be found m my book 'Folk-tales of the Maori, which I wrote in collaboration with him, was a Maori of great intelligence and sterling character. His mind was steeped in the lore of his race, and it was with great enthusiasm that he entered upon. the work of preserving in a form which might appeal io the pakeha race some of the korero pono and korero tara (true ahd humorous tales) of his own people. His. history had been a remarkable one. As a boy lie visited xvelson, soon after the founding of the settlement in 1842, and he told me that he had cut firewood on the site where my house stands, in order that he might sell it to the pakeha people, and get with which to buv taonga (goods) which he could take back to .Itangitoto (D'TJrville Island). Maori War Veteran " When the hapu there dispersed he went to Wellington, where for some time he rowed in the pilot-boat, but afterwards he went to Taranaki, and was there when the Maori wars of the 'sixties broke out. He sided the white race, and enlisted m Major Brown's Maori regiment, in which he rose to the rank of colour-sergeant (or ■which he was justly proud), and took part in all the principal actions in Taranaki, including Mahoetahi, and was decorated" with the Queen's medal. When the war was over he settled at Waitara for many years, but as an old man h 6 came to the Croixelles, near Kelson, and there spent the remainder of his life, which came to a peaceful end in May, 1905. " The taiari is made of human bone, taken from the slain, and is doubly tapu. IU the first place it is endowed with the tapu of the person or persons '(certainly of the rangatira class, and therefore chiefs) from whose bones it was made, and, secondly, it possesses the tapu of Te Whetu's wife (whose name, I think, was Aniwani'wa, The jßainbow'), who wore it. Though a century ago, when this taiari was made, there were plenty of such things in existence, since they were appropriate presents given bv victorious warriors to their womenfolk, there are not many of them in existence now, and the reason for this scarcity probably is that, as in the case of Aniwaniwa's taiari, they have been buried with' their owners, andv the segments, have been lost m the earth, or have been left there_ purposely. / Being a bracelet, the taiari was worn*/on the forearm (one on each arm) and would be very effective in the haka, in which gesticulations with the arms formed so prominent a feature. "For 30 years this taiari hung on a knob of a piece of furniture in my drawing room, where Karepa te Whetu placed ,it for safe-keening, and I, who am no"longer young, have placed it in the museum of the city where I was born, so that it may be preserved as a relic of the ancient race whose future is wrapped up inextricably with our own, in this land where the Maori was lord of the soil for centuries. Any tangible memento which recalls vividly that race's history is valued to-day, and will be prized inestimably in days to come "