MAORI REMAINS.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 187, 14 January 1875, Page 3

MAORI REMAINS.

Mr Thomas Daniel, M.P.0., furnishes to the Southland News the following interesting account of a discovery of Maoris’ tools and weapons:—“About three years ago the Maoris here, under Pitau, one of their old chiefs and warriors, were digging a very largo matai or black pine stump out of his garden. It was about 3ft through, and when alive would be about 50ft in the stem, and say 200 years old. When they got the stump out, in working at the tap root, they turned up a lot of charcoal, and with it some old stone axes. This led to a further search, which resulted in the unearthing of thirty two finished stone implements of all kinds, and about fifty others in a rough state, some halffinished and others nearly so, together with sgcoral atone hammers used in their manufacture. There were several small stone chisels, and a sort of gimlet or drill about a foot long, and the thickness of a finger—usid with a bow for boring, and also several pieces of flint (jasper). I asked Pilau and some of the oldest Maoris how they supposed the weapons, &c, came where they were found. Their idea was that they had belonged to a mechanic or axemaker, and—in expectation of a raid, of which the natives lived in constant dread—they were planted in a hole in the ground; that a fire was lighted over them for tneir better concealment; and that, the owner having been killed, they remained until found as stated, the tree having grown over them in the meantime. Pitau, who is a big powerful man over 6ft high, states that some of the tools—an adze in particular over 25in in length, and thick in proportion—are much heavier than the Maoris now living could use. He thinks ‘there were giants in those days’—an expression probably derived from the Biblical teaching of the native minister, Solomon. Pitu dismissed the theory that the implements had been placed under the trees while growing, with the remark, ‘ Did you not see the hole must have been a large one, with the tree in the centre and the roots spreading all over?’ I therefore conceive that those implements are the oldest on record as having been found in New Zealand. Pitu said the race that used them had not then met with the greenstones —that it was discovered by the present race, who found it easier to fashion and better to keep its edge when sharpened than the stone previously I have some of the stone adzes (handled) by me yet. (I may mention that 1 got handles made for about twenty by an old Maori.) Of these I intend to give four to the Otago Museum, and two, with one of the hammers, to your Invercargill institution, placing them in the meantime in the keeping of Mr M‘Kenzie, at his private museum. This will complete the distribution of the collection, as I some time ago gave Captain Oliapm in, of the Dido steam frigate, half a dozen of the largest adzes (handled), the drill or gimblet, and a most beautiful transparent greenstone adze, receiving from him a promise to place some of them in the British Museum. Some again I gave to Mr Macandrew, who came with him, and to other gentlemen. This account of the manner in which the implements were found has not been published thus far, and may interest those of your readers who have given any consideration to the question of the antiquity of the Maori race.”