UNIQUE MAORI MATS ARE BEING OFFERED FOR SALE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 43, 12 May 1950, Page 5

UNIQUE MAORI MATS ARE BEING OFFERED FOR SALE

Two beautifully woven Maori mats that fnust be unique in the Bay of Plenty are now being offered for sale at Ruatoki by the maker, Mrs H. Tawa, of the Maungapohatau Pa, in the Urewera Country. Measuring 20 feet by 16 :eet the mats are very finely woven of flax and kia kia, a native plant, and both required a period of three years to complete. Each mat has typical Maori designs worked in but one has a touch of modern influence in that four verses of a waiata or song have been woven in with the other designs. This mat especially reveals the painstaking skill that was xequired in its making. The wording is quite distinct and readable and the forming of each lei ter must have taken hours of slow weaving. This can also be said of the other, designs. They are pleasingly simple but closer examination shows the intricate work that has gone into them. Mrs Tawa’s husband is a well - known Maori carver of the Urewera Country. At present he is doing most of the carving for a new meeting house at present being erected at one of the Ruatoki Pas.

The price being asked for the mats is believed to be somewhere in the vicinity of £SO.