INTRODUCTION.
THIS little book is an endeavour to set down the results of careful investigations extending over many years on the subject of pounamu or New Zealand greenstone, and the special uses to which it was applied by the Maori. For savage art, rude though it be, and doomed to extinction as civilization advances, has an individuality of its own which makes it of importance to the ethnologist and of interest to the student; and it is the duty, no less than the pleasure, of those who have studied it to place on record what they have been able to learn of its achievements.
Ever since the Pakeha, the first European visitors to New Zealand, regained their ship there has been much carrying away of examples of old Maori craftsmanship, and those in greenstone have always had a special attraction for collectors. So many specimens of worked pounamu, indeed, have been brought to the British Isles since Captain Cook's return to England in 1771, that the silver streak might almost be called te wai pounamu. The old worked greenstone now sees no more wars, but it is still the object of the rivalry of collectors, who value it, as its former possessors had done, for its beauty and rarity, and for the strange and interesting forms into which it has been wrought.
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