MAORI FISH HOOKS

Taranaki Daily News, 1 June 1935, Page 9

MAORI FISH HOOKS

. . . . ."■■■ GREAT PATIENCE OF CRAFTSMEN. <? —7 MDA BONE FAVOURITE MATERIAL, ? The story of the infinite patience of the ancient Maori as revealed in the // making of his fish-hooks was told by ■Mr. V. F. Fisher, assistant ethnologist v, at the Auckland* Institute and Museum, in an address delivered before the Royal Society at Dunedin. The subject of Mr. Fisher’s address ' was Maori solid fish hooks from the Mercury Bay district, where Mr. Fisher lias spent a good deal of time in doing field work. The dealt with-all • stages of the manufacture of the onepiece hook,, from the time when the hook was a solid piece of bone, roughly shaped, to when it finally emerged, the finished article. The address was ifitUtrated with lantern slides, which told their own tale. V,, . ,<i , • “The area,” said Mr. Fisher, “contains beaches, many of which were the seelie of Maori activity. of former times, as . ■ evidenced by old middens found in thdae places, especially on the low-lying sandhills adjoining the beaches.' » ; f ‘ “Many specimens are fragmentary, but therein lies their especial interest, because they have been thrown aside! and now they serve as evidence of the methods and processes employed in thdr i / manufacture, thus making it possible to outline' the various, stages with -a ; fair degree of accuracy. “Various authors have done similar work, especially in regard to material . collected in Otago, but the value of this paper lies in the fact that, firstly, the material is from a restricted locality; and, secondly, it illustrates 'the prd- J gressive stages in the making, of the implements more fully than has been done previously.” Mr. Fishfer mentioned that the first person to publish anything on the, matter—-in 189&—considered . that the fragments illustrated the manti- 3 facture of a bone-barbed point, for a . compound hook. The paper described the tools used ’and the various stages of manufacture. Most of the raw materials for the hooks word of moa bone. First of all a pie& of bone was cut into the size required, and carefully smoothed, front, back and sides. A native .drill was used to move the central portion, or core. • Then V’’ the rough edges were rubbed to the ■ required thickness by the . stohe filjt. Next the top of the hollow oval was broken through in order to form the shank end of .the point, The latter ww 2 incurved and set fairly close to tha shank limb. , ' Mr. Fisher stressed the necessity preserving even minute fragments things .Maori, as they often shed light y on important problems. From tße ethnological point of view, fragments were often of greater value than the' perfect specimen. ‘ ’

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