MAORI PAINTINGS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 20 January 1931, Page 9

MAORI PAINTINGS

DISCOVERY AT WEKA PASS

Steps are being taken by the Lands and Survey Department to proclaim as an historic reserve an area in the Weka Pass which contains examples of Maori, or possibly Moriori, rock paintings. They are situated in a cave on Mr F. C. Trounce’s holding, discovered comparatively recently, reports the Christchurch “Press.” Before this cave was visited by Europeans, it contained one of the most interesting collections of rock paintings in New Zealand, and is therefore well worth restoring and preserving. The height of the shelter—it is more shelter than cave—at its entrance, is 9ft and the back wall, which slopes inwards, is about 6ft. The rock is very closely granulated limestone, which wears very slowly and takes a polish. Tho back wall of the shelter, to a height of 6th and a length of 66ft,. is covered with paintings representing grotesque forms of men and animals, the figures being two or three feet in height, having been executed in an oil paint, possibly made from the black and red pigments mixed in bird-oil as commonly used by the Maoris. The figures are now somewhat obliterated through tho action of the weather and fungoid growth, and there is also a limited amount of damage through rubbing by stock and scribbling by picnic parties. The area is now sheciirely fenced in and the figures will be restored.

In South' Canterbury—in the Raincliff and Cave further examples of these paintings are to be found. At Cave there are also early rock carvings. Tho paintings at Raincliff are more extensive and in a better state of preservation than those in the Weka .Pass, and are, in consequence, of great ethnological interest. As the Weka Pass paintings are on private land, the public has no access to the spot, except through the written permission of .the Commissioner of Crown Lands (Mr W. Stewart), and the lessee of the land.

The paintings have been known to picnic parties for some tirgp, but have only recently received official recognition by the Lands and Survey Department.