GRIM RELIC OF PAST.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3012, 18 March 1926, Page 4

GRIM RELIC OF PAST.

BRONZE RING FOUND ON NATIVE WOMAN’S FINGER

WHAT IS ITS HISTORY?

Whilst on a visit to Gough’s Bay (Akaroa) recently, Mr. G. J. Black, of Gisborne was handed an interesting relic of the past. It appears that some boys had found a skeleton which, on further examination, proved to be that of a young Native woman. On a finger is a bronze or brass ring, soldered to which is a plate with n figure of an aged bald-headed, lie-whiskered man, with a turned-lip cloak collar, not unlike the inode affected in the Elizabethan days. On one side of the profile are the capital letters S.F., and on the other D.S. The ring is of crude workmanship, and its small dimensions indicate that it could have been worn only by a girl or young woman with a slender finger. How great a period has passed since the burial took place is not ascertainable. The ring is black with ago and exposure, and it is known that there has been no Maori settlement in the immediate locality for the past half-century, but it was once the site of a very large pah. Some people to whom Mr. Black has shown the curio are of the opinion that it might possibly be a rcligous relic. Others, again, reckon it may have been a form of trading present used for the purpose of bartering by the early whalers. The fanciful viewpoint has even been put forward that it may have been carried by a sailor bn a foreign vessel which visited Akaroa in the dim past before Cook made his initial voyage of discovery of New Zealand.

On his return journey, Mr. Black showed the ring to Mr. Elesden Best and to Mr. Johannes Anderson, but neither of these experts in Maori history was able to throw any light on its identity.