FASCINATING HOBBY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, Issue 17690, 2 July 1927, Page 7

FASCINATING HOBBY.

LOCAL ARCHAEOLOGY. Mr Hugh S. McCully is a retired Farmer, who lias .spent ami .spends ! much of his leisure in a fascinating ! hobby—the search for relics of pref historic peoples of this district, j Mr AloCully began with copying, by tracing weird “pictographs” or draw- ! ings on limestone “rock-shelters/' of which there are many in South Can- _ terbury—apparently more than elseI where in this Island. Xone of these < queer decorations have been recorded j in the North Island, it seems, though recently some canoes, sculptured on a soft rock, have been discovered. Some of the finest pictographs yet discovered by Mr McCully became familiar to him on an Upper Wait old Downs farm! Living later below Temnka the collection of articles of Maori are in objects of greenstone occupied his attention, as well as that of many others. From first to last a large number of this class of “curios’’ have been picked up about the mouth of the Temuka river. “Greenstone Island” • was so named fqr that reason. Many greenstone articles have been found near the mouth of the Pareora, among thorn, what is said to bo tho finest greenstone tool in any of the museums. “Moa bones” next became for a time a chief line of search,. pursuit of which took Mr McCully to many points in this district, and as far as Shag Point. Southland, and Maidborough, wdien business gave excuse for such journeys, and some previously known and unexhausted “finds” were delved into. MOA HUNTERS’ CAMPS. Moa bones suggested moa bun tens and moa-hunters’ camps. Mi - McCully took up this subject enthusiastically. He has explored several of these camps on tho Waitaki, at the r.ioutii (south side) near Kurow, at Akatarawa, and on the Oliau branch. They are distinguished from later Maori hunting camps by the presence of moa bones and moa stones among the burnt oven-stones, and by the absence of greenstone, which the moa hunters evidently did not use so extensively as the later-coming Maoris. They, however, left many relics of their tool and implement-making in hard quartzites and slate, and other stones. Mr McCully has filled with such relics several cases in the Museum room of the Timaru Public Library. They include a few completed and polished articles; the majority are rough, merely chipped into .shape, or towards a shape. They left also an abundance of chips of the stony materials they worked in, and “cores” or remnants of boulders from which flakes had been split. At AVaitaki south these are scattered over a large area, which is dotted with patches of oven stones, about which lie fragments of moa bones, and moa “gastrolites” (gizzard stones.) are common. Similar relics lie found at various places up the river, above-mentioned.

Few polished articles in quartzite have been found. This stone is too hard. The tool-makers had to content themselves with chipping the edge of a flake split off from a “core.” They had evidently acquired much skill in* flaking and chipping, to get pieces of useable shapes for different purposes, and in obtaining a serrated or sawedge. In a number of cases rude shapes can he arranged in series, in which can he traced a direction of effort to produce, i>.T flaking and shipping, a tool or instrument of regular form, for some definite use or uses—-an adze, chisel, or borer, for example. Slate is a softer and therefore more workable material than quartzite, and some very interesting things in slate are among Mr McCully’s collections. He has at home a much larger collection than that in the Museum. Especially interesting are examples of the use of a piece of slate as a saw in cutting other pieces of slate or other material, straight grooves in which uncompleted drawings show how the saw was used. In at least one case decoration had been added to an article of use. A piece of slate, probably part of a fish scraper, had had a fish neatly scratched upon one smooth flat surface. AN OLD KUMAR A GARDEN. AVhile seeking for relics of the old tool-makers, Mr McCully caine across a few acres of land on the south hank of the Pareora, near the sea, which lie believes to have been at some past time used for the growing of kumara. There has been some discussion of the question of how far south the Maori cultivated the kumara. It has appeared in print that the winter climate was too cold to permit this tuber to be grown south of Ranks’ Peninsula. Then its range was extended to the mouth of the Rakaia. Not long ago evidences of its cultivation were discovered in tho Park ;u Temuka, and inquiry from aged natives there elicited-‘that they had heard, when young, that the kumara had been grown there. The evidences referred to are proof of tho fact; the memories recalled bring the date of

cultivation within a generation or two. Mr MtCully’s recent find shifts the southernmost known kumara plantation from TNnuka to the Pareora. Even this was not the southern limit of kumara cultivation, if the statement of an old Maori woman at Morveu is correct. She told Mr A'vCully that, she could remember hearing her grandparents talk of having grown kumara at AVaikakalii. It now remains to discover the locality of this plantation. The Maori agriculturist discovered that the kumara grows best in gravelly or sandy, porous soil, and wherever ho went, if such a soil was not naturally available, he set to work to produce it artificially, even at the cost of much hard labour, by carrying gravel or sand from any available source and spreading it "upon and by cultivation mixing it with the natural soil. Mr Elsdon Best’s “Museum Bulletin” on “Maori Agriculture,” contains a great deal of information on this head, in quotations from Captain Cook’s journal, and the writings of early colonists who observed the Maoris at work, and saw the results, in gravelled or sanded land, and gravel or sand pits. The amount of work done in carrying gravel in baskets to spread over land was in some cases almost unbelievable, .so large are the gravel pits, so large the areas of land gravelled. The AVaimea district of Nelson furnished the most striking of the cases mentioned by Mr Best. The discovery- of gravel pits and gravelled soil in Temuka Park showed that kumara had been cultivated there, and led to the oldest Maoris being questioned about it.

In Mr McCully’s find of a prehistoric kumara garden on the bank of the Pareora, there is only the gravelled land to be seen, a patch, or rather two patches, in a field the rest of which is tho usual soil of the Timaru clay country. The area is roughly traceable by tho shingle mixed with the soil in the cultivated paddock; in all it may be about one or two acres.. (Tin's, however, is only a rough guess. A measurement is to be made later.) There is no associated gravel pit, because the shingle was got from the Pareora river-bed close by, and the river has doubtless flowed over and filled any holes made by the gardeneis. Thero is evidence that the river has flowed along the bank, and cut isoir.e of it away, since kumara was grown there, for an edge of the artificial shingle bed shows in the upper edge of the cliffy bank. The bank consists of a lower bed of old red shingle, above which is a bed of clay, five or six feet thick. The shingle showing in the edge is not just in the surface, but is covered with a few inches of soil. This may be assigned to deposits of dust, blown off the river-bed since kumara growing ceased there. The plough would work through this, root up .some of the gravelled soil beneath it, and bring it to the surface. At ono spot certainly, the cliffy river hank is broken down to an oblique slope, the appearance of which suggests that this was one place where the gravel bearers got up the bank with their loads. As the gravelled land extends for some distance along the hank and much less far-away from it, there were doubtless several paths up and down the bank. The angle between the sea and the river lias been rich in Maori relics. Alan y articles of greenstone were picked up there, unearthed by the plough, ill the early days of cultivation. There may be many others still buried there. Air McCully was greatly pleased to find, amongst other objects, the blade of a push-hoe of greenstone, of which tool, in greenstone, lie lias heard that there is onlv one other known, and this in the North Island. Tli© push-hoe would be much used bv kumara growers, a.s they were careful to keep the plantation clear of weeds. The whole story of kumara growing, and of Maori agriculture generally, as tolcl by Air Elsdon Best, is absorbing!,’ interesting. _ So also is the investigation of prehistoric kumara plantations. Ti the kumara was not grown by the pre-Alaori people, and if the Maori (a.s is argued) never saw the moa, the south side of the Pareora had been a camping place of pre-Alaori moa hunters before the kumara growers arrived there; for tho plough has un-' earthed many fragments of moa-bones. white moa stone-s (gizzard .stones), ami burned oven-stones, suggestive of successful hunts and of feasts on moa’s flesh.

[The foregoing article was the last contribution by the late AIV John Hnidcastie, to the “Timaru Herald ” :