Sales catalogue: Christies

Date:
14th July 1924
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/4/160
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue: Christies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    430/456 page 50
    ETHNOLOGICAL SECTION. NEW ZEALAND OBJECTS IN JADE Like the other Polynesians, the Maori were absolutely ignorant of any metal, their tools being made of jade, stone, obsidian, shell, bone and teeth; and with these apparently inadequate implements they produced wonderful results. For instance, canoes 80 feet long and 6 feet wide were built of enormous planks cut from the solid tree and lashed together, the figure-heads and stern-posts being beautifully and elaborately carved. Their axes and chisels were used for much the same purposes for which stone celts must have been employed in Britain, chiefly for cutting down timber, scooping canoes out of tree- trunks, killing animals for food, dressing posts for hut building; also ag weapons of war and the chase, &e. War was the chief occupation and pastime of Maori men, and cannibalism was, in later times, one of the chief incentives to war, enemies killed in battle and prisoners being alike eaten. Some of the greenstone implements were mainly used for ceremonial purposes and carried as a sign of rank. The Rosehill Collection of greenstone or jade tools described below is probably without & rival. ier dé — ) Seven examples of New Zealand ear and neck ornaments, in jade and serpentine, the latter of a precious and highly translucent quality—13 im. to 52 in. long 7 a 5¢ 9) A Penpant, of translucent green serpentine, in the form of ' a shark’s tooth, probably unique ; also four ear-rings, in ~ jade—1% an. to 33 in. long a) ae 24 mm. long; and six ear-rings, or neck ornaments, all-in HE jade—3t in. to 45 in. long Pee Ee ee ie nag r, my 4 4 . ot) Three long jade ornaments, of rather heavy type—48 an., “a 6 in. and 64 im. long—all pierced for suspension ; also one unpierced—3}4 im. long ; and another 5 } 612) Turnn JADE Har-Rine@s, of elongated form, in New Zealand £853 er greenstone—83 i., 8 in. and 33 in. long 3 513 A Series or Forry-torer Extremety Rare anp Earny GREENSTONE Braps, of roughly spherical form; also four small rings, of Oriental jade, probably of Chinese origin 47
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