THE ARTS of the Maori are linked in spirit with those of all mankind, the desire to satisfy a longing for beauty, for truth, and for self-expression. Decoration of person and possessions is one aspect, the expression of feelings through dance and song is another. In some of his arts the Maori has carried on traditions brought from the Pacific centuries ago, but some elements have been evolved in New Zealand.
Wood carving is an example of an art developed through the availability of suitable timber and the application of very real artistic ability. All Polynesians carved wood but none of them reached the standard of the old-time New Zealand Maori.
Maori carving is almost entirely based on conventionalised forms of the human figure, with suggestions of birds and monsters, and quite definite representations of lizards occurring from time to time. Working with stone and greenstone adzes and chisels in totara wood the craftsmen would carve great ancestor images for their meeting-houses, to be set as panels along the walls or as posts to hold up the ridge pole. Thus a superior house became a gallery of racial and tribal history.
It was seldom religious in nature, for the gods of the old mythology were not often depicted and the ancestors of historic times were not deified.
The designs range from the almost natural figures at the base of posts, through conventionalised but still recognizable forms, to complex compositions in which the human basis of the design can scarcely be discerned. The figures have a variety of head and body styles but frequently feature open mouths and protruding tongues. One figure known as manaia is bird-like in appearance. Eyes are of the shining shell of the paua, a shellfish very like the abalone or ormer.
On the figure is incised surface decoration in lines and notches, usually curved and sometimes spiraled. A carving convention is the use of the three-fingered hand. Styles differ from one part of the country to another.
The great timber trees of New Zealand, in particular totara and kauri, made it possible for the Maori to carry out carving on monumental lines. The pieces of timber needed for the bargeboards or the end slabs of a meeting-house were too massive to be obtained elsewhere in the Pacific.
Some of the finest carving was carried out on storehouses, the bargeboards of which often show in highly conventionalised form figures hauling a line, at the end of which a monster struggles. Particular care was given to the carving of the intricate and beautiful house lintels and to canoe bow-pieces and stern-posts. Spirals with large elements of the design completely piercing the wood are a feature of many of these.
