Gilbert Archey Auckland War Memorial Museum. The KAITAIA CARVING — is it Maori? This unusual carving was discovered in 1921 deep in a swamp between Kaitaia and Ahipara. It appeared at first sight so different from Maori work that ethnologists began to search far and wide over the Pacific and beyond to discover where the idea of it might have come from. I say the idea, not the carving itself, because we know it is made of New Zealand tetara; never-theless even in its idea, or at least in its main outline if not in its unusual details, it is essentially Maori. For example its main features are a central figure, from which the upper margin curves on either side to end in a manaia at either end, and this is the standard arrangement in many pare. But between these figures are long slender chevrons. Are such chevrons found elsewhere in Maori art? And can we call the figures at either end manaia? As for the manaia, we need only look at a number of Maori carvings such as lintels and canoe-carvings to discover how many varieties of curious figures the Maori carver made of it. As you see some are tall, others short, stout or thin, standing upright or lying sideways; so we should have no difficulty in recognizing these Kaitaia end-figures as just further examples of the curious creatures the tohunga created to fit into his patterns. The different shapes of these