In many ways the Maori proved their patient and careful industry. They made for themselves tools of all kinds—axes, adzes, chisels, knives—out of flint and jade, shells and shark's-teeth; and they also contrived various formidable weapons. Many of these articles are accurately curved and shaped, polished and carved. With tools of this nature the Maori levelled the gigantic kauri pine, and cut from its trunk the ponderous waka-taua, or war-canoe; cut and shaped with an accuracy that would stand the test of nice geometrical instruments.
The war-canoes were fitted with richly carved prows, stern-posts, and side-pieces, often inlaid with shells and greenstone. They were sixty or seventy feet in length; and would hold over a hundred men. With forty or fifty paddles on a side, one of these canoes could be driven through the water with all the velocity of a steam-ram or racing skiff.
Not only canoes, but also the fronts of dwelling and council-houses were adorned with elaborate workmanship. Then there was a kind of wooden statuary, which was set up in kainga and wahi-tapu; and there were picture-writings cut upon rocks and trees. Weapons, tools, personal ornaments, tiki—or image-amulets—and so forth, showed very great care and cleverness in design. The ornamentation was very intricate, was finished off with surprising nicety, and was executed in a style that cannot but excite our wonder. For, it is to be recollected, that the Maori possessed no metal tools or instruments.
Grotesque and curious as is Maori sculpture, it yet clearly evidences some artistic leanings. There was doubtless some sort of Society of Arts among the tribes. For, certain men or women, peculiarly skillful in some special particular, became persons of great renown throughout the land, and their services were sought after by favour, force, and fraud.
The highest branch of art, or, at least, what was esteemed to be such, was the Maori heraldry, and its emblazonment upon the living skin. Artists skilled in this making of the moku—tattooers, as we Pakeha call them—were tremendous dignitaries. Their talents were a gift, were held to be genius, and no means were hesitated at which could secure one of these persons to a tribe. Battles were fought for them, and poetical biographies of some of them are even yet current. Such was the Art-cultus of the Maori.
In pursuing the subject of ancient Maori civilization, there are many points worthy of note. Dress is one of these. Although the Maori were accustomed to walk about completely naked—save and except the moku on their face, chest, and thighs—yet they had garments that were always donned on state occasions, at night, and when the weather was cold.
Of course they had no idea of indecency, and, indeed, have only a forced and artificial sense of it now. Naked as they were in person, they were still more natural in mind, and this quality is still notably apparent. It is not possible for a Maori to talk for five minutes without uttering words, metaphors, and allusions, that to us convey the most revolting and shocking notions, though the speaker is entirely unconscious of anything but the simplest matter of fact. The language, as colloquially used, is full of stumbling blocks to English refinement, and it is for this reason, doubtless, that few settlers' wives and daughters learn it at all, even though they may be living in the midst of Maori.
The garments of the Maori consisted of a breech-clout and a toga, made principally from phormium fibre. I have called the chief universal garment a toga, instead of giving it the ordinary designation of "mat," or "blanket," because it was worn after the manner of the old Roman toga; and, though a heavy, bundling kind of dress, it gave a certain sort of dignity to the wearer. These two articles were all the garments proper, but several ornaments were added to them. A kind of helmet was occasionally worn; and sandals were used by persons with delicate feet, when walking over rough ground.
The mats were made in considerable variety, of dog-skins, and of flax-fibre. Some were very elaborate and adorned with fringes, tassels, and embroidery, being dyed of various colours. Some, made from a choice species of phormium, were soft and silky. Into the threads of others were woven feathers of the kiwi and other birds. These two last kinds were highly prized.
The whole process of making the simplest of these dresses shows a degree of patient, industrial enterprise, highly creditable to the operators. First of all, the flax (Phormium tenax) was gathered, dried, macerated, beaten, and the fibre picked out with the fingers, combed, bleached, and otherwise prepared. By these arduous and laborious processes it was entirely freed from the gum which permeates the leaf, and could be wound into thread of various degrees of fineness. That accomplished, it was woven into cloth, upon a frame of wooden pins stuck into the ground. Fringes and embroidery were manufactured with the simplest possible appliances, and the juice of sundry trees, plants, and berries, yielded good dyes of different hues.