HUGE MAORI ADZE.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1416, 16 October 1923, Page 6

HUGE MAORI ADZE.

A VALUABLE RELIC. A huge stone adze from the Chatham Islands, which was recently acquired by the Otago University Museum, was exhibited at the last meeting of the Otago Institute. Mr H. D. Skinner, who exhibited it, stated that the Museum had for some time possessed a group of three Maori adzes believed to be the largest trio fr,om the Chatham Islands in any collection. These measured respectively 12in, 14:|in and 14:|in in length, and 4.',, 4A and 42in in width, and weighed 4*lb, 51b and silb. The new adze, however, turned these three into pygmies, for it weighed 291 b 4oz —more than twice as much as all three put together. Its length is ltHiin, and its cutting edge is 7in across. It is complete in every respect except that the blade is unpolished. It has a well defined 'grip' (the region round which passed the cord attaching it to the wooden helve), and in cross section it is recitilinear, thue conforming to Poly-

nesian adze types in the two most important characteristics. A feature of the implement which is very unusual in Maori and Moriori adzes is the sudden expansion of the blade as it conies to the cutting edge, just as is the case with modern steel axes, but this feature could; said Mr Skinner, be paralleled elsewhere in the Pacific, notably in the case of two large stone adzes from Pitcairn Island in the British Museum collection. The purpose of this huge and unwieldy implement could only be conjectured. In the first place its weight was so great that even if a man could lie found strong enough to wield the adze, it would inevitably tear away from the wooden helve on the first impace with the timber. More insuperable even than this difficulty is the fact that the Chatham Islands produce only small trees; indeed, there were none large enough to provide even small dug out canoes, and the Morions were forced to develop a wash through vessel made of rods and twigs and buoyed up by the air sacs of the bull kelp. Mr Skinner therefore suggested that the purpose of the maker of the. adze might lie to gratify feelings of ostentation by displaying an adze far larger than anyone else had ever dreamed of. It was interesting to compare the Moriori giant with others in the University Museum. One. from the Bluff, excelled it in length, being 21i in over all, but this example had only been roughed, and would probably never have been finished. A narrow adze from the Clutha district was 16in long and weighed 6*' 4 lb, while a large Pounawea adze 14in in •length turned the scale at 91b. Surpassing these is a great tree felling 'punch' (not an adze) from the Otago Heads 17in in length, and weighing 14Jlb. In the Dominion Museum is the huge and splendidly finished Maori adze from the Buller collection 22i in long, 4 : iin wide, and 111/lh in weight. The largest Hawaiian adze recorded in Brigham's memoir is 21in long and weighs 911 b. The largest stone cutting implement in the collection of the Australian Museum, Sydney, is an almond shaped adze from the Fly river, which, when weighed before the Pan Pacific Congress, turned the scale at 18:71b. It will thus be seen that the Moriori implement vastly exceeds in size any implement from the Pacific known to our museum authorities. The British Museum, however, possesses a stone celt from the African Gold Coast which is stated in their handbook to be 28in long. Its weight is not given, but it can hardly lie less than that of its Moriori rival.