Did Maoris Roast Mo as In Hangis ?

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 682, 6 June 1929, Page 11

Did Maoris Roast Mo as In Hangis ?

Knotty Point Worries Modern Investigators HISTORY IN WOOD STRIP Even if ancient Maoris with healthy appetites did bake moas in their hangis— ovens—they committed the palpable blunder of neglecting to leave the bird’s bones among the ashes.

rjnHIS oversight has caused investigators in modern New Zealand so much trouble that two distinct schools of thought on the question of moa-devouring have sprung up. The ancient Maoris can hardly be taken to task for gross carelessness. It is reasonable to assume that, after a hurry-scurry through the scrub in pursuit of a speedy flock of moas, nothing was further from the minds of the hungry hunters than the possibility of dissension among modern investigators. Mr. A. T. Pycroft, member of the committee of the Anthropology and Maori Section of the Auckland Institute and Museum, belongs to the school of investigators which contends that the hapless moas were demolished on the spot by avid Maoris. Meanwhile, in Dunedin, Mr. H. D. Skinner, lecturer in anthropology at Otago University, is collecting proof that moas were baked in hangis. He has written to Mr. Pycroft, telling of the activities of a party in unearthing raoa bones at Little Tapanui in an effort to solve the riddle. “My own opinion is that the moas were eaten on the spot,” Mr. Pycroft said to the section at its annual meeting last evening. “It may be possible to get conclusive evidence, but it is a fact that no moa bones have yet been found actually in the ovens. There have been heaps of bones close to the ovens.” Mr. Pycroft is of the opinion that Auckland has infinitely more opportunities than Dunedin for such study of features in the life of the early Maoris. Last evening, he urged the section to do its best during its coming year of work to build up interest in investigation. FOUND IN CAVE An interesting link with New Zealand’s infancy was shown to the section by Mr. Gilbert Archey, curator of the Auckland War Memorial Museum. To the casual observer, the strip of wood which Mr. Archey handled had no interesting features, yet it was found in a South Island cave, and is undoubtedly of great antiquity. The most probable guess as to the use of the wood bar is that it was an outrigger on a model 01 small native canoe. The wood has all the appearance of the outriggers of canoes used by other South Sea Island races. The Maoris undoubtedly used outrigger canoes at one stage, and there are even legends v that outrigger canoes, besides the generally accepted double canoes, were used in the New Zealand Migration. One estimate is that outriggers passed out of use in Aotea-roa by the end of the 18th century. Abel Jansen Tasman, who stumbled across New Zealand in 1642, recorded the presence of outrigger canoes at the disastrous first meeting of whites with natives at Massacre Bay. The Maoris seem to have persisted with outriggers for a century or so, and then to have found that they were not needed in the rivers and coastal routes of the new land. Tawhiti and Hawaiki fashions forgotten, the Maoris evolved an all-New Zealand craft.