HISTORY OF OTAGO TEXTILES

Otago Witness, Issue 3775, 20 July 1926, Page 35

HISTORY OF OTAGO TEXTILES

AN APPEAL. In the latest issue of Jhe Journal of the Polynesian Society appears the final instalment of Dr Peter Buck's papers on the evolution of Maori clothing, completing the fii est piece of research not alone in Maori technology but in the whole field of Polynesian craftsmanship Dr Buck began his work with* an investigation into the technique of Maori basketry oi wickerwork of netting, and of •tukutuku pannelling, his results appear ing in a series of excellent papers in the Transactions* of the New Zealand Institute. When thj ground had thus been cleared he set to work on the much larger and more difficult field of Maori clothing. lie set him*elf the task of learning every step in the whole technology cf flaxwoik, not omitting all grades of scutching and cleaning, dyeing, spinning and plaiting. Finally, all the many types of garment were investigated, their manufacture learned, and the whole written down. In a series of nine papers published in the Journal of the Polynesian Society illustrated with many plates and « e hundred and fifty beautiful drawings, he has recorded iln; art, and in the final paper, just published, he has drawn his conclusions as to its origins. He shows tliat basketry and plaiting were fully developed in Polynesia before the Maori came to New Zealand and a slight further advance had been made by applying the methods ol basketry to pliable materials for the manufacture o’* simple kilts. But as in Polynesia a suitable material for almost >ll types of ciotbing was supplied by tapa cloth the kilt remained in ob scurity. When the Maori ancestors came to New Zealand they found a climate too cold for the paper mulberry from the inner ba»*k of which tapa is made, and were forced to employ on the fibre of New Zealand flax the basketry methods already tentatively applied in tropical Polynesia. To the industry and ingenuity of Maori women working along these liras in the last five centuries is due the great variety and beauty of types of clothing lo be seen in the Maori section of oor museum. Dr Bucks investigation is of great in terest but it should appeal especially to Otago people, first because the authoi is a graduate of the University of Otago, and secondly, because the most important piece of evidence in the whole research, the key piece in the history of the ail of Maori textiles, is supplied by an ancient Otago cl« ak, found long ago in a cave at Mount BeDger, by Mr Cocker and presented by him to the Otago University Museoin in the ’seventies This venerable garment is so important that its de scription occupies no less than six and a-balf pages and calls for eleven drawings and diagrams Its makers followed a tradition still adhered to in Otago, as our northern friends aver, by laggin2 a trifle behind the fashions of the north, retaining a cut and finish which cousins from the Waitcmata must have regarded as ftipelessly antiquated. Nor was the material qune above criticism for, although the foundation was of flax fibre beautifully worked and finished the knap which turned the rain from the wearers shoul ders, was made of a local material, viz., good Otago tussock. On this point, too, its old-time maker might have been blamed for undue provincialism. It is, however, from these very characteristics that the cloak draws its importance. The reflection arises—what if this piece of Otago handicraft bad not reached e shelter if the Museum? What if, like hundreds of other Maori relics found in the dry climate of inland Otago, it had been taken borne to for-’ a nine days’ wonder end then to languish amid the dust of the stable loft until thrown out to burn beneath the copper on some Monday morning? The answer is that science, the Museum, and ultimately the general public, would have been fbr all time tno loser, just as they have been the loser by every other of the hundreds of pieces that have been deßlrroyed. We appeal to all loyal Otagoites who hove such material in their possession to run no further risks but to hand it over at once. In the museum that material will be safe, and in the new wing it will render con pleter the record of tho handicrafts of our Otago Maoris.