OTAGO MUSEUM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22632, 25 July 1935, Page 5

OTAGO MUSEUM

! RECENT ADDITIONS , WIDE FIELD REPRESENTED j The latest additions to the Otago ! Museum include material drawn from places as far apart as Canton and the Taieri Gorge. They embrace examples of Maori workmanship and the products of European gunsmiths, and represent human civilisation from the stone age development to that of modern England and America. From Mr W. Mills the Museum has received an extensive collection of rifles and revolvers. The latter, form a par- : ticularly interesting group, ranging as they do from huge bell-mouthed pistols like small blunderbusses to fairly modern revolvers. The admirer of American " bad men" will gaze with a degree of awed admiration at certain long-barrelled " six shooters " such as those with which Jesse James and his ilk came riding - down on wild west towns to invite the inhabitants to " stick 'em up." An opportunity to display the collection has not yet been presented, but they are now being prepared for exhibition. MAORI PISH TRAPS. Some very interesting Maori material | found in a cave in the Taieri Gorge has | come into the possession of the Museum

from Mr H. Webb, of Taioina, through the good offices .of Mr A. B. Welch. This consists of two plaited fish traps, such as are to be fouud in Otago only in caves or rock shelters, for the Maori population which provides this sort of thing in the North Island has in the South Island been' European'ised for a century. As a result wickerwork and textiles from Otago are exceedingly rare. The, smaller of the two baskets appears to have been made from some such material as fern stalks, and has been plaited with remarkable regularity. The other resembles a northern eel pot, but the small opening provided for the entrance suggests that, if an eel pot, it must have been used only in some small tributary of the Taieri. With those two pieces is a mat or cloak of unusual interest. Originally it had on the upper edge a border composed of strips of dog skin made from the now extinct Maori dog. The mat itself had been dyed a reddy brown, presumably with some old vegetable dye. Owing to the fact that the pieces have been fairly extensively damaged, it will be a considerable time before they are sufficiently restored to be placed, on exhibition.

CHINESE MATERIAL. The family of the Rev. Alexander Don has presented an extensive collection of Chinese material, which is now on view in a special case in the upper gallery. Included in the group are figures in wood, bronze and soapstone, one of them incidentally having been -"made by a Chinese miner on the Central Otago goldfields. A compass of Chinese design with astrologer's directions for casting a horoscope gives some indication of the type of compass which was known in China long before European sailors had any other guidanco than that provided by the sun and stars. Is it a further example of that peculiar twist in Chinese thought that the indicator is made td point not north but south? A. small but interesting collection of Maori material from Wickliffe Bay has been given by Mr E. Johnson, including fish-hook points, needles, drill points, adzes, sinkers, a grindstone, and a couple of skulls. From Mr W. W. Bird, of Wellington, has come an ancient canoe bailer belonging formerly to a Maori named Raurete, a direct descendant of Ngatoro, one of the chiefs who reached New Zealand in the famous Arawa canoe.' Other material which Mr Bird has given includes a series of adzes from Rarotonga, Tonga and Hokianga, and a beautifully shaped stone pounder from Rarotonga. Mr C. 0. Hutton has given a specimen of tremelite from Springburn, between the Kawarau and the Cardrona, where, it may be mentioned, a number of greenstone pieces found at Murdering Beach were originally quarried.

Other donors of material to the Museum include Messrs C. Coster (Maori stone flax-beater of southern type), R. D. Dunoon (adze), R. S. Grigg (greenstone adze), W. R. Brugh (two glass spearheads from Broome, Western Australia), L. Locherbie (adze made of fossilised wood and other material), the Rev. A; Mason (two mats from Sikaiana, a 'bonito hook and a number of other Melanesian pieces), Messrs W. Jamieson, W. Mirow, Willi Fels and Mr and Mrs H. D. Skinner. In addition, the Museum has received a large amount of material collected recently by Mr David Teviotdale in,the Nelson district, and on Marlborough and Otago 9ites. ANCIENT CANOE. Among the purchases perhaps the most important is a canoe from the Cook Islands which has been secured with the assistance of Mr Drury Low, of Mauke. It is stated to have been made with stpne tools and the help of fire about 30 years before the missionaries reached the Islands in 1843. Only qjie other canoe of pre-European times is known among Polynesian collections. This was secured by an explorer before the time of Cook, and is now housed in the British Museum. A good deal of other material from the Cook Islands ha 9 been purchased, together with some Maori material, some of which was secured as far afield as GJasgow. The Museum has also secured the Cox collection of material from New Ireland and New Britain in the western Pacific.