ADDITIONS TO MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2865, 1 September 1916, Page 6

ADDITIONS TO MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

BUT NO SPACE FOB DISPLAY,

The collections contained in the Dominion Museum expand, but the wooden building in which they are housed grows only iu age and general nnsuitability. One consequence of this stato of affairs is that the staff cannot display all tjio new objects of interest entrusted to'its care, and/many things that should become exhibits have to be stored a'wiiyuwith the great mass-of material,that, has so. long accumulated in cases and corners. The i plans for a new Do minion _ Museum, a fireproof structure for which New. Zealand will not have need to blush, «re iu existence, but apparently the time for tho unpacking of the cases is still far distani. Among recent additions to the collections aro some very 'interesting trackings of. aboriginal rock paintings and carvings, from South Africa and Australia. Theso were the. gift of Mr. J. E. Elmore, an American collector, who has interested himself in.the subject. Mr. Elmore was attracted to New Zealand "partly by the rock paintings in the welca Pass, Canterbury, - and elsewhere. The tracings aro not on exhibition, sinco tho museum staff has no place wliero they could bo displayed without involving "the removal to obscurity of somo other oxlribit.

Another recent addition to the collections is a pectiliar specimen of tho kelicru, a type of wooden spade -used by the' Maoris in ancient days in the cultivation of their crops. The ordinary keheru, which boars a closo family resemblance to tlfb spado used in the highlands of Ssotland in olden times, has a footpieco lashed at the side above tfto narrow blade, in order that tho worker may use his foot to drivo the. instrument into the ground. Tho featero of this keheru, discovered in a. sftamp In tllo north, is that it has boon nut'from one block of wood, tho footpiece, carefully shaped for tho naked root, requiring no lashings. Tho work involved in the production of such an instrument- with stoi'.o tools must have b<»en very great, and it would be interesting to know why Ilia maker went to so much trouble, since ajashed footpiece would have, been fully as serviceable. * Possibly he was inspired by sheer.pride of craftmanship.