Figure 49
Figure 49, which is a drawing of part of an ancient wooden monument raised to a Maori chief, shews in careful detail the tattoo marks on his face. For our present purpose it is of special interest as shewing that he wore a tiki of the B type suspended, in the same way as is shewn in Figure 36, by the left arm.
The left-hand drawing in Figure 42 shews a tiki in process of formation from a water-worn piece of greenstone, which is now in the British Museum. The work, as has already been noted, began with the fashioning of the limbs. The same illustration shews two adze-blades of greenstone on which are the beginings of the perforations, which prove that it was also intended to make tiki of them. When iron axes supplanted the native adzes many tiki and other ornaments were made out of the discarded blades of greenstone. Tiki made from these blades can be readily recognised, because the adzes being thin in section the ornaments made from them are not so plump as those more ancient specimens that were cut from rough blocks or water-worn fragments of nephrite.
Famous tiki were named in the same way as famous weapons. The largest in the British Museum collection, which was given