Page:Pounamu, notes on New Zealand greenstone (IA pounamunotesonne00robl).djvu/51

Rh the drawing up of the North Island from the depths of Wainui, the mother of waters, by the demi-god Maui, a legend that is current also among the inhabitants of the islands of the Pacific. A very curious matau is shewn in Figure 23, which illustrates one in the British Museum. It is evident that it was the first intention of the carver to make a tiki (see Chapter VI.) of

the piece of stone from which it is fashioned; the artist, however, changed his mind before he got to work on the upper part. The oldest matau, of which a typical example, preserved in the University Museum at Cambridge, is shewn in Figure 24, are to be recognized by their rude workmanship and coarse form, as well as by the rough edges, which indicate an early period when the native lapidaries had not attained to the high