. The geography of New Zealand. Historical, physical, political, and commercial . eisure moments carve combs, flutes, rings fortame decoy parrots from bone or greenstone, fish-hooks, pins, and various ornaments. Sometimes coloured earths, vegetable and animaloils, feather and vegetable dyes had to be procured,so that the warriors and chiefs might adorn them-selves. On rare occasions the drying and preservingof heads had to be done by a long and difficultprocess. For canoes and houses much carved work had tobe prepared, and some of the more elaborate canoeornaments must have taken years to work
. The geography of New Zealand. Historical, physical, political, and commercial . eisure moments carve combs, flutes, rings fortame decoy parrots from bone or greenstone, fish-hooks, pins, and various ornaments. Sometimes coloured earths, vegetable and animaloils, feather and vegetable dyes had to be procured,so that the warriors and chiefs might adorn them-selves. On rare occasions the drying and preservingof heads had to be done by a long and difficultprocess. For canoes and houses much carved work had tobe prepared, and some of the more elaborate canoeornaments must have taken years to work out fromthe solid log. The hollowing out of the log for the THE MAORIS OF NEW ZEALAND 403 hull of the canoe was effected by the use of fire andthe chipping out of the charred portion. The women, as in most countries, were entrustedwith the preparation of food, and the weaving ofsmall baskets of green flax in which the food wasserved, no baskets in which cooked food had beenplaced being used twice. They had also to gathershell fish from the banks in the estuaries, to clean the. Carved l)ox for lioldiug feathers for the hair orgreeustoue ornaments. seafish brought in by the fishers, to fetch firewood,prepare flax, to plait it, and weave it into clothingand baskets of very many different kinds. Then atcertain seasons weeds grew apace in the cultivationand had to be destroyed and fresh gravel fetchedfrom a river bed and placed on the kumara number of plants in the bush furnished them atdifferent times with small edible berries, the collec-tion of which involved much labour. The Maori wasa great consumer of fish, and the shell-fish found onthe coastal tidal flats, and in the proper seasons the 404 GEOGRAPHY OP NEW ZEALAND cliffs and breeding places of the seabirds affordedyoung shags and other young seabirds, all muchesteemed as food. For clothing or covering they relied almost entirelyon that most useful plant the phormium, which Avasto them almost as useful as the coco-nut
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Keywords: ., bookauthorgregoryj, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookyear1905
