Pounamu: Notes on New Zealand Greenstone/Chapter 3
Chapter III.
GREENSTONE IMPLEMENTS.
THE principal mechanical tools of the Maori of the old days were toki or stone adzes (Figure 3), of which the most highly prized were made of greenstone. It is convenient to describe these tools as adzes inasmuch as they were helved in the same way as our adzes; but with the important
Figure 3.
With the largest toki trees of great size were felled, but the process was naturally tedious and lengthy. Maning, writing in Old New Zealand, says: "With rude and blunt stones they felled the giant kauri—toughest of pines; and from it, in process of time, at an expense of labour, perseverance, and ingenuity, perfectly astounding to those who knew what it really was—produced, carved, painted, and inlaid, a masterpiece of art, and an object of beauty—the war canoe, capable of carrying a hundred men on a distant expedition, through the boisterous seas surrounding their island."
Spells (karakia) were pronounced over the larger toki which were used for felling and working timber intended for the making of canoes or the timbers of an important house, in order that they might do the work effectually and that no harm might happen to the work, the workers or the material. In a somewhat similar way a workman when beginning to whakarau or smooth the surface of a canoe would cast a small stone into it to save his knowledge of the art of timber-working from being lost.
Many of the toki of the old Maori had special names given to them and are famous in song and legend. In at least one case a noted weapon changed hands to mark the transfer of land. When in 1856 the land hitherto in the possession of the Maori was sold at Waikawa, to European settlers, the chief, Ropoama Te One, addressed the commissioners in these words as he struck into the ground at their feet a greenstone adze:—"Now that we have for ever launched this land into the sea, we hereby make over to you this axe, Pae whenua, always highly prized because we regained it in battle after it had been used to kill two of our most famous chiefs. Money vanishes and is lost, but this greenstone shall endure as a lasting witness of our act that the land itself which now is ours has been on this day transferred to you for ever.”
Mr. James Cowan has preserved a tradition of a famous adze which was regarded as the abiding place of a spirit and possessing a special mana of its own. This implement, named Papataunaki, was the property of one Rua three centuries ago.
Figure 4.
A very curious adze-head (Figure 4) was exhibited in London in 1910. It was formed from a tiki[1], the head of which had been ground flat and sharpened to a cutting edge. The rest of the ornament had been but little interfered with, and still shewed the form of the body, arms and legs. It was evident that the owner or captor of the tiki had had more need for a cutting tool than for an ornament, while the piercings of the tiki thus altered would conveniently serve to aid the lashing of the tool to its helve. There is strong presumption that toki of the ordinary form were sometimes pierced with a view to facilitate the lashing of them to their helves.
Another kind of greenstone toki, of small size and thin in section, was the war-adze (Figure 5) to which the names toki pou tangata, toki honu pou and toki whawhao pou were given. 
Figure 5It is said that this tool was sometimes used for fine wood-carving; but its normal use was ceremonial. It was carried by chiefs as a token of chieftainship either in the belt or in the hand when speech-making; sometimes it was used in battle as a convenient weapon to dispatch a fallen foe. Its handle was less than two feet in length, and was adorned with elaborate carving at both ends, the flax cord lashing of the blade being often ornamented with brightly coloured feathers or dog’s hair. A loop of cord which went through a hole at the butt end of the handle was passed round the wrist of the holder to save him from losing the precious token.
Mr. Polack, writing in 1835, speaks of the war-adze as an uncommon weapon, and tells of the difficulty that he had found in getting a specimen from an aged tohunga, or priest.
John Rutherford, a sailor who had been for nearly ten years
Figure 6
a captive in the hands of the Maori, was sent by the natives, 9th January, 1826, to decoy an English ship to land in order that they might plunder it. “I was then dressed,” he says, “in a feathered cloak, belt and turban, and armed with a battle-axe, the head of which was formed of a stone which resembled green glass, but was so hard as to turn the heaviest blow of the hardest steel. The handle was of dark black wood, handsomely carved and adorned with feathers.” Rutherford failed his hosts in every particular. He not only warned the English sailors of their danger, but being taken off by the ship, a free man but no longer a Maori chief, he made a present of the ceremonial dress
Figure 7.
and the war-adze to Captain Johnson, the commander of the ship which took him back to freedom and civilization.
A war-adze, similar, no doubt, to that which was entrusted to Rutherford, is illustrated in Figure 6 from a drawing by the Author.
It was only rarely that the Maori used tools or weapons shaped like our axes, and the reason is obvious. The greenstone never being drilled or cut to receive the tool handle, an axe with its edge parallel with the line of the handle was an impossibility, and an axe-like tool made by lashing the stone head to the side of the handle would be clumsy and ineffective.
Captain Cook remarking that “without the use of any metal tools they make everything,” mentions “the chisel and goudge of green serpent stone or jasper.” These were set in handles of hard wood to which they were attached with flax cord. The illustration (Figure 7) on page 28 shews at A. a chisel (purupuru) now in the British Museum. A greenstone drill with a facetted point, used for making the holes by which the top strakes of war canoes were lashed, is shewn at B. A gouge is represented at C. in the same drawing.
Figure 8Chisel work and extraordinary skill with it produced those masterpieces of wood carving of the Maori which are to be seen in their houses and gates, their war canoes and their monuments. Sir George Grey gave a remarkable instance of the pride of the native wood-carvers when he told how chiefs who had been late for an appointment with him, though he was the kawana, that is, the governor, excused themselves by explaining that they had been engrossed with their chisels.
Barbs made of greenstone and lashed to curved pieces of wood to serve as fish hooks are not common; two specimens, now in the British Museum, are illustrated in Figure 8. They were hard to make and easy to lose, and the material was too valuable to risk when bone, wood and shell answered as well for the purpose.
Mr. Elsdon Best, speaking in his Forest Lore of bird-spears, says “seldom were greenstone points used, they were very rare.”
Figure 9Figure 9 shews an implement which is possibly the point of a bird-spear.
There is a tradition of one that belonged to Tamatea-kai-taharua, who flourished about 250 years ago. It is said that one day when hunting he speared a pigeon, and the point becoming detached from his weapon the bird flew away with it sticking in its body. The agile hunter is said to have followed the wounded pigeon for fifty miles before he recovered his tara pounamu; and men still point to Tara Pounamu hill, so named in memory of the event, as proof of the truth of the tale.
Other implements such as wedges, cutting tools, circular knives, rasps with worn edges that have been used in sawing blocks of stone, burnishers and even needles, are to be seen in museums among collections of articles made of this wonderful stone.
- ↑ See Chapter VI.