Fans - Samoan Material Culture
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Fans ( ili ) are made of coconut leaf, pandanus, and wood. Coconut leaf fans are divided into two kinds according to the treatment of the leaf which results in different shades of color. The brown coconut leaf fan ( ili aulamalama ) is made of ordinary dried coconut leaf ( aulama ). The tip end o...
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
North Auckland Canoes
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Traditions regarding the canoes which brought settlers to the north Auckland area are not so clear as those already described. Percy Smith page 60 (77, vi-1) attributes this lack of detail to the fact that missionary influence was established early in the north and the tendency was to suppress al...
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Naming of Islands - Polynesia - An Introduction to Polynesian Anthropology
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
The original Polynesian discoverers usually gave a distinctive name to each island, but as each island in a group remained independent under the government of its own chiefs, the inhabitants of a group evidently saw no necessity for coining a special name for a unity that never existed in their d...
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Lean-to Shelters - The Coming of the Maori
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
The houses made by the first settlers, according to Te Matorohanga (81, p. 69), were wharau and he states that the later people from Hawaiki page 114 learned how to make similar houses but they varied the name to tawharau. The structure of the wharau is not given in the native text but Percy Smit...
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The Bonito Plank Canoe
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
The bonito canoe ( va'a alo ) was built for speed so as to keep up with the schools of fish being pursued by the bonito. To obtain speed, the hull had to be made as light as possible. The size of the canoe was no problem as trees larger than the canoe were readily obtainable and were used in the ...
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[covers] - Medicine Amongst the Maoris, in Ancient and Modern Times
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
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Plaiting - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Plaiting is such a distinctive and widespread art in Polynesia and the fundamental technique is so similar when applied to different materials and various articles, that it is dealt with here as one section although it groups together artifacts that could be placed under other headings. I have al...
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Stone Implements - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Implements with which to fashion wood into houses, canoes, food utensils, weapons, and other objects were of primary necessity. In atoll islands devoid of stone, Tridacna shell furnished the most suitable raw material; but in volcanic islands, the more durable basaltic stone was used. In the Cook...
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Fishing - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Fish were of the highest economic importance, providing a basic protein food to supplement vegetable foods, but they also had an important social significance. All social functions in which the people shared were accompanied by a feast. Before the day of the feast, a fleet of canoes went out to c...
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Hunting - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Hunting is used here as a convenient heading under which to group the activities adopted for catching live creatures of the land for food. The scope was not large, as there were no large native animals. The introduced pig and dog were well looked after and had no chance of escaping to become wild...
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Introduction - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
The study of the arts and crafts of the Cook Islands reveals fundamental similarities and a number of differences. Some similarities were widely shared with marginal areas, others were narrowed to neighboring groups or even to neighboring islands within the group. Similarly, differences were shar...
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Food - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Of the various implements and utensils used in connection with food, the following are widespread and belong to the period of primary settlement: These utensils were so simple and necessary that there was little room for elaboration or change. Breadfruit pickers, carrying poles, and coconut and g...
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Plaiting - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Plaiting is a very old craft that must have accompanied the Polynesian ancestors into the Pacific . Its application to coconut and pandanus leaf for the making of various necessities must have been well developed before the arrival of the first settlers in the Cook Islands . Thus, thatch sheets a...
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Headdresses - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Headdresses, more or less elaborate, were worn in all the volcanic groups of Polynesia. Maoris just stuck single feathers in their hair, but they added ornamental combs of carved whale-bone found nowhere else in Polynesia. The various island groups used techniques that differ so widely that they ...
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Adzes - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
As quadrangular adz heads were in general use in the marginal areas of Polynesia, it may be assumed that the quadrangular type was the original form before dispersal took place. The fact that a few quadrangular adz heads were in use in the Cook Islands at the end of the second period indicates th...
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Horticulture - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
The use of irrigated terraces where streams and land contour permitted is old. The pointed digging stick is widespread and underwent no improvement except in New Zealand, where a step was added and carving introduced. The agricultural implement in the shape of a club ( fig. 181 , a ) was a local ...
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Change - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
No culture can remain static. As may be seen from the account of the various objects attributed to the second period in the Cook Islands material culture, a number of changes took place. Though some elements may be regarded as stable, few except those of simplest form, remain unaffected by some c...
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Survivals - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Though the invasion of western culture has wrought many changes, the native culture of the Cook Islands has retained numerous elements of the past. It may not be amiss to touch briefly on religion and social organization before dealing with the survivals in material culture. The entire population...
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Deterioration - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Some crafts deteriorated in form and technique during a period of transition to the present form or before final abandonment. I know of no instances of deterioration before the native crafts came under European influence. Deterioration in technique may be attributed primarily to the fact that cha...
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Stratification - Arts and Crafts of the Cook Islands
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
The study of archaeology in Polynesia usually has been confined to surface objects such as stone temples, stone tombs, and stone artifacts. Excavations have been avoided for fear of offending the natives by interfering with their sacred places. Some organized digging has been done in New Zealand,...
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