Carving was used on many articles of everyday life—weapons, agricultural implements, boxes, ornaments, stockade posts, and gateways. A number of excellent examples of carving now in museums have been discovered in swamps where they had been placed for security in times of stress, or for seasoning.
Tattooing, too, is a form of carving, for the designs are similar and the face tattoo of the old-time Maori was cut into the flesh, not pricked as is the custom elsewhere.
Maori traditional painting is restricted almost entirely to one field, the decoration of the rafters inside a meeting-house. But restricted as it is, it is so striking and appealing that in recent times it has been called upon to supply motifs for all manner of contemporary decoration. There are several basic elements—scrolls, crescents, and spirals being the principal ones. The scrolls are the most popular and are said to have been based on the form of a young fern frond, which they do in fact resemble. Others are said to have been inspired by the kowhai flower and indeed all rafter painting is known as kowhaiwhai. Most of the designs have names and some have stories too.
In olden times the designs were painted in red, black, and white, the artist drawing his patterns on the wood and then filling them in with colour. Red paint was made by mixing shark-liver oil with kokowai, an earth stained red with iron oxide. Soot supplied the black, and the white was either the unpainted wood or a white clay.
An interesting aspect of art was the painting done on the rock walls of caves and shelters. Surviving examples are mainly in the South Island but some have been recorded in the North. In these rock paintings men, birds, and lizards can be seen clearly. One from a rock crevice on the banks of the Waikato River was as good a cartoon figure as ever came out of Disney’s studio.
The pleasing curves which form the basis of Maori wood carving and painting design are made possible by the nature of the material, but another important section of Maori art, the decorative patterns used in weaving, are dictated even more by the material. The rigid rectangular framework formed by the threads is the ideal basis for patterns which run in lines rather than curves. Thus it is that lozenges, zigzags, and triangles dominate cloak borders, head bands, and the ceremonial sash, called tapeka, sometimes worn by men.
Such decorative weaving is called taniko and is today used also for bodices, belts, and other small items. Colours used are usually red, black, white, and sometimes yellow. The coloured weft threads, that are the horizontal ones, which are not needed, run hidden behind the design and are brought forward from time to time as the pattern dictates. Te Rangi Hiroa calls taniko the masterpiece of Maori weaving and indeed it is.
Similar geometric designs are to be seen in the lattice work of superior meeting- houses. Wall panels of laths and reeds lashed together with coloured fibres are placed between carvings. The panels, which are called tukutuku, consist of horizontal bars—wooden laths painted red or black are used these days—-tied to vertical reeds at the back, with space being allowed to pass the lashing thread back and forth, and also to show a portion of the shining yellow surface of the reed. This reed is the stem of the toetoe (pampas grass) and is called kakaho. The lashings are black-dyed flax, white kiekie (an epiphyte with long leaves), and orange pingao (an orange sand-dune grass). There are a number of named designs in zigzags, lozenges, and stepped or alternating blocks of colour formed by the crossed lashings.
