Museum Notes MYSTERY OF THE MORIORI

Southland Times, Issue 24104, 18 April 1940, Page 11

Museum Notes MYSTERY OF THE MORIORI

Primitive Types Of Fish Hooks COMPOSITE AND SIMPLE CLASSES The two classes of hooks —simple and composite—which are found in most of the groups of the Pacific, were both used by the Morioris. A simple hook is one which is cut in a single piece, whatever the material may be. A composite hook is one made of two or more parts which are held together by fibre binding, by pins, or in some other way. Each of these classes may, in most regions of the Pacific, be subdivided into many types, and this is especially true of the composite hooks. The Southland Museum displays specimens of most of the types of Maori simple and composite hooks.

In the Chathams Islands, the material used in all known examples of the simple hook, is whale bone or whale ivory. Whale bone, except the finest and most compact pieces, can not be so finely worked up as human or moa bone, and for this reason Moriori hooks tie, as a class, larger and clumsier than are Maori hooks. Wood was also probably used as a material for simple hooks, but no examples are known, nor are any in stone, though stone pendants were made in the form of simple fish-hooks. Collections of Moriori hook material are very deficient in specimens illustrative of the methods employed in making fish-hooks, but the tools used cannot have differed much from those used by the Maoris. It is evident from the form of Moriori simple hooks, that the greater number have been made by the following method. The outline shape of the hook is sketched on a suitable piece of whale bone and this shape is then cut by grinding on a piece of sandstone or by means of a sandstone saw. The next step is to ruo or grind out the inner curve and so form a kind of bone ring. This being completed to the artisan’s satisfaction, the ring is then sawn through at the lashing end and the hook awaits only the finishing touches. By this method the Morioris produced a hook, the shape of which is characteristic, and rarely seen elsewhere. Its chief feature is the U-shaped inner curve and the resulting absence of vigor and individuality in general appearance. A different method of manufacture was probably used in some of the forms of simple hooks that have been collected for it is difficult to believe that such shapes can have been produced without the agency of a drill. HOOKS BY DRILLING PROCESS In making hooks by the drilling proc ss the first steps are as given formerly—namely, the sketching of the hook on a suitable piece of whale bone and the sawing of the outline by means of suitable pieces of sandstone. The next stage, however, consists of the drilling process. A series of holes are drilled along the inner curve and the tab thus isolated is knocked out. The concluding steps are the same as these of the previous process and the type of Moriori hook resulting from it has much more individuality than the other and is scarcely to be distinguished from some Otago hooks.

The commonest form of hook ornamentation is by serration. This form of decoration occurs in New Zealand, where Hamilton regarded it as an archaic characteristic. On one of the hooks in the Cambridge University Museum there is a decoration of three lines arranged like a broad arrow.

Collections of Moriori material are very deficient in composite hook material but sufficient exists for us to definitely state that such hooks were used in the Chathams area. For the purposes of manufacture the bones of some sea mammals were used and it is also j likely that the Morioris would use wood I and probably train green sticks into the [ desired shapes by tying and binding during growth. Schurz, in his desire to prove that the Morioris are closely allied to the Australiod stock is led to declare that their material culture is in some respects more primitive than that of the Maoris. In proof of this assertion he states, among other things, that the Morioris have only the “primitive” type of hook which is made in one piece. It is true he figures the barbed bone point of a composite hook, but he describes it as the point of a bird-spear. The barbed bone point figured by Schurz does not differ in any way from the points of composite hooks found in many parts of Southland and Otago. Another type of hook point used by the Morioris was the fish gorge. This gorge was made from a piece of bone and pointed at both ends and r. specimen measured was six inches long by three-quarters of an inch wide. It is believed that such a gorge was tied round the middle to a line and then secured parallel to it. A worm bait was then attached and gorge and line were used in eel-fishing. Similar gorges are very plentiful on numbers of Otago Maori sites but seem to be rarer further south.