MAORI ART.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1224, 5 September 1911, Page 11

MAORI ART.

. . « . . ' . . NEW SPECIMENS FOR THE MUSEUM. Tho Dominion Museum is again fortunate in having had two further presentations from Mr. W. L. Buller. Tho most important is a celebrated specimen of a Maori pataka or store-houie called To Takiuga. This is a very elaboratelycarved specimen, which was figured by Mr. Hamilton in "Maori Art," and is of considerable size. The carved board in front is about 15 feet in length- It is said to have been built out of a larce war canoe wliich was drawn overland from Maketu, on the coast of tho Bay of Plenty, to EotoTua, Lake, a distance of about 30 miles, by Hong-j, when that great NgaPithi warrior, attacked Makqia Island in Hotorua Lake in the year 1822. The figuro on the doorway slab represents Pikiao tho ancestor of Ngati-Pikiao trite. The tekoteko or small figure on the cablo is called To Takinga, the son of Piki.io. Sinco it came into the possession of t.ho lalo Sir Walter Buller, . this beautiful pataka has been on its travels on several occasions, having boon to five exhibitions, including so-mo in Australia and tho Indian and Colonial Exhibition in England, where it made a very fine feature of t.ho court, being erected on high posts, and was surrounded by tree ferns and oilier New Zealand plants. Tire Museum now possesses two very fine specimens of old Maori store-houses, neither of which unfortunately is at present able to be cxhibiled. The second sift from Mr. Buller is a collection of about 100 stone adzes of various kinds, together with two largo creenstono axes, showing tho progress of cuttin'; a narrow strip from one sido of each of them by the old method of sawing with sandstone and water.