The most remarkable petroglyphs found in New Zealand are situated about 1 mile on the western side of the Weka Pass road in a rock shelter, which is washed out of a vertical wall of rock lining a small valley for about 300 feet on its right or southern side. The whole length of the rock below the shelter has been used for painting, and it is evident that some order has been followed in the arrangement of the subjects and figures. The paint consists of kokowai (red oxide of iron), of which the present aborigines of New Zealand make still extensive use, and of some fatty substance, such as fish oil, or perhaps some oily bird fat. It has been well fixed upon the somewhat porous rock and no amount of rubbing will get it off.
Some of the principal objects evidently belong to the animal kingdom, and represent animals which either do not occur in New Zealand or are only of a mythical or fabulous character. The paintings occur over a face of about 65 feet, and the upper end of some reaches 8 feet above the floor, the average height, however, being 4 to 5 feet. They are all of considerable size, most of them measuring several feet, and one of them even having a length of 15 feet.
Beginning at the eastern end in the left-hand corner is the representation a of what might be taken for a sperm whale with its mouth wide open diving downward. This figure is 3 feet long. Five feet from it is another figure c, which might also represent a whale or some fabulous two-headed marine monster. This painting is 3 feet 4 inches long. Below it, a little to the right in d, we have the representation of a large snake possessing a swollen head and a long protruding tongue. This figure is nearly 3 feet long, and shows numerous windings.
It is difficult to conceive how the natives in a country without snakes could not only have traditions about them but actually be able to picture them, unless they had received amongst them immigrants from tropical countries who had landed on the coasts of New Zealand.
Between the two fishes or whales is b, which might represent a fishhook, and below the snake d a sword e with a curved blade.
Advancing toward the right is a group which is of special interest, the figure i, which is nearly a foot long, having all the appearance of a long-necked bird carrying the head as the cassowary and emu do, and as the moa has done. If this design should represent the moa, I might suggest that it was either a conventional way of drawing that bird or that it was already extinct when this representation was painted according to tradition; in which latter case k might represent the taniwha or gigantic fabulous lizard which is said to have watched the moa. h is doubtless a quadruped, probably a dog, which was a contemporary of the moa and was used also as food by the moa hunters. j is evidently a weapon, probably an adz or tomahawk, and might, being close to the supposed bird, indicate the manner in which the latter was killed during the chase. The post, with the two branches near the top l, finds a counterpart in the remnant of a similar figure g between the figures c and i. They might represent some of the means by which the moa was caught or indicate that it existed in open country between the forest. m, under which the rock in the central portion has scaled off, is like f, one of the designs which resemble ancient oriental writing.
Fig. 133.—Petroglyph in New Zealand.
Approaching the middle portion of the wall we find here a well-shaped group of paintings, the center of which n has all the appearance of a hat ornamented on the crown. The rim of this broad-brimmed relic measures 2 feet across. The expert of ancient customs and habits of the Malayan and South Indian countries might perhaps be able to throw some light upon this and the surrounding figures, o to r.