MAORI CARVINGS.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18876, 21 February 1933, Page 8

MAORI CARVINGS.

PRESERVATION OF THE ART. WORK FOR OTAKI HOUSE. The precious art of Maori carving, often lamented as if in danger of being lost, is being preserved by the skilled native workers at the Maori Arts and Crafts School at Rotorua. ■This school, by quickening inteicst and giving expert instruction, has rescued the art from the desuetude into which it -had fallen, with the result that the carving of to-day is more comparable with that of the early tohungas than the productions of twenty years ago. Though the work In the school is confined to a few, there are as many as forty 'Maoris in the Arawa tribe at Rotorua who practise carving. \ good example of present-day achievements Is the carving for the -Meeting House at Otaki, with which the school has been entrusted. From solid blocks of totara, each specially selected from trees on the sunny side of the forest, the skill of the native lias fashioned a hundred pieces, each with its ornate and symbolical design The work is all done by hand, for the only tools to he -seen In the school are the adze, chisels of different sizes and shapes, and mallets of -solid whale-hone, which do their job •very effectively. Among the workers is an old Maori who carved at the Christchurch Exhibition in 190607. lie has no superior with the adze. .Most of the pieces for the meeting -house at Otaki have been completed and now await transport. The N'gatiRaukawa tribe at Otaki _ can claim descent, from every tribe in New Zealand, the Arawas and the East Coast Maoris predominating. Maintaining their ancient pride in lineage, the carvers have embodied this tradition in the design for the house, it will he what is known as "universal" and the particular designs which distinguish each tribe will all he found in the meeting house of the Ngati-Rau-kawas, who arc representative of them ail. , .. The, next big task will he flic carving for To Ante 'College. I liewood' is already -seasoned for this. It Is probable, 100, that the school will be, entrusted with the work of carving the meeting house at- Mailangi, 'which is to he creeled before 1 the centenary celebration* of 19-10.