“The cloak was called ‘pokeka’. This cloak took a lot of making. The outside part was of very fine flax, and the inside part made of very fine whitau (fibre) with feathers (aweawe) taken from the inside of the albatross wing. (The wrap was apparently double, for Mr Cameron goes on to say): This was sewn to the other part, made of the very fine flax I have mentioned before.” A sling of lacebark or hohere, plaited to form a soft band, was formerly used by the mother in some localities to hold the baby in position on her back. This sling went out of fashion well back in the last century, and none can be seen in our Museums today. Pokeka is a well known southern generic term for fine cloaks. Tiny children appear to have become used to a state of nudity at a very early stage unless the weather was very cold, as it often was in Southland. About the year 1875, an English child named Florence Rogers was born at Ohanga, on the East Coast of the North Island. Her parents immediately engaged the services of a local full-blooded Maori woman, a gentle person named Heterina. She was greatly honoured to have charge of the child, and to show her esteem for the infant, straightway decided that a wrap must be made for it. This was to be no ordinary garment, but a wrap which a high-born infant of Maoridom well might envy. The weaving must have its appropriate ‘poka’, or shorter weft rows, to make the wrap fit more snugly around the small body. Warmth was not essential for the child had other tiny garments; so the open work technique of the ornamental basket, ‘kete whakawaitara’, was used in the weaving. Lastly, around all was a fringe of European wool. The wrap was used on all important occasions during the first year of the baby's life, then carefully stored away, until recently Florence Rogers, now no longer young, presented the garment to the Dominion Museum. Details of wrap for baby, East Coast. (photo: charles hale)