The Orator’s Staff

By: Henry Usher Hall

Originally Published in 1924

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Among the Maori of New Zealand and in the Samoan islands oratory had a peculiarly privileged position among the arts. In New Zealand, in an organized college for the sons of nobles, rhetoric was taught incidentally to the instruction formally given in the traditional lore which provided an essential part of the raw material of the art of persuasion. While in Samoa a special class of men of position outside the ranks of the semidivine aristocracy had become associated with the ceremonial exercise of the art, in New Zealand it remained an appanage of the aristocracy proper. In both regions the orators carried special insignia. The Maori nobleman had his two handed quarterstaff or wooden sword, hani (taiaha), Figs. 3, 4, 5 ; the yeoman orator of Samoa his flywhisk and long plain staff. In Easter Island, the farthest known eastern outpost of Polynesian colonization, a staff very similar in form and carved decoration to the Maori hani was carried as the distinguishing mark of certain persons, who, so far as can be gathered from our scanty information on the subject, seem to have represented a class more closely resembling the aristocratic orators of New Zealand than the middle class professional speakers of Samoa. Two examples of these Easter Island staves, known as ua, are pictured here, Figs. 1 and 2.

Two wooden staves, full length, one end of each carved into a head and face
1, 2. Easter Island staves
Museum Object Numbers: P4806 / P3142A
Image Number: 35

The hani of the Maori orator was displayed and wielded in the appropriate convention on a variety of formal occasions. The most usual of these was the ordinary assembly of the nobles and gentry of a particular tribe or district for the discussion of political affairs. In describing a meeting of leaders of the Kingites—a group which attempted to set up and maintain a monarchy among the Maori in the third quarter of the last century—Cowan1 says: “Chief after chief arose from the crescent of natives, chanted the melancholy sounding waiata which is the usual preface to a Maori oration, some performing the taki (a little hop-step-and-jump up and down the marae) by way of punctuation marks between the sentences. Full of poetic metaphor and apt simile were the addresses of the Kingite leaders—dignified, self-possessed orators, weighing their sentences well, but at no loss for words.”

The Maori had a well developed poetry, epic or narrative, and lyric, and the connection between this and oratory was close. Thus we are told: “The fugleman in the hakas must he an orator if he is not a poet ; for he has to invent rhythmic speeches of a highly figurative style to interval the choruses. All the imaginative power of the chiefs and priests in New Zealand developed in this direction, and speeches became as essential to every meeting of Maoris as they are to every type of assembly in England. The tohungas and chiefs grew adepts in moulding and rousing the feelings of their audiences; and though they revelled in figures of speech till the Oriental arabesque overlaid the original aim and meaning, as important an essential of the orator was the dramatic gesture and action. He paced hither and thither, at first with slow dignity; but when he had roused himself and his hearers to the requisite pitch, he postured, and grimaced, and acted as wildly as he would in a war dance. But the art ever remained an extemporaneous one; its products were for the occasion, and not meant to be handed down by tradition, like the songs and incantations.”2

This may pass with some comment. It is evident that the noble or gentle—if we may indicate the essential of birth by a term which seems on the face of it a little inappropriate in the particular context—leader of the dramatic dance known as the haka must in fact be poet at the same time as orator, since it was of the essence of the matter that he had to clothe the products of his memory and imagination in speech moulded into decorative form and rhythm. And if his oration was topical and extemporaneous and not preserved for later generations in the retentive memory of the tohungas, priests and teachers in the Maori school of classical learning, it was in this school that he learned his art and stored his mind with the legendary history of the old gods and heroes which formed a great part of the subject matter of public oratory.

This college was known as the Whare-Wananga.3 Whare is a word for house, and wananga has the meaning both of the higher, sacred knowledge and of the recitation of that learning. The Whare-Wananga admitted only the sons of nobles and a most important aim of its teaching was competency in the highly esteemed art of the public speaker. An old teacher in the House of Sacred Lore who, with two others, dictated to an educated Maori noble the substance of the ancient knowledge, which has thus been preserved to us, admonishes his pupil in these words :4 ” O Son, be strong. You have nearly completed the Celestial things, and then we shall go to the Terrestrial things so that you may quickly gather all these matters. Now, my word to you is: Do not disclose these matters to strangers. Leave them as a ‘strengthening knowledge’ for you, your brethren, your children and your grandchildren, to enable you to hold your own in the marae of strangers.” The marae was an open space in a fortified village, where matters of importance were discussed and ceremonies of various kinds held.

The use of the word wananga in the descriptive title of the Maori college appears to be a specialization of the meaning of a term whose application to this usage is significant of the particular kind of importance attached to the teaching given. The word is found in various Polynesian dialects. Its meaning, as seen in its rather numerous variants, seems originally to have referred to the simple emission of sound. Samoan vagana—the transposition of sounds involved is a not unfamiliar occurrence in Polynesian—means to resound. Easter Island vanaga has for its most general meaning to say or speak. Whether vanagarua, echo (rua = two), is a specialization of this meaning or of the probably more primitive—in its reference to sound in general—Samoan, is not clear, but the latter seems more likely when the great distance between the two localities and the survival in both of a form having a connotation seemingly wider than that reported from any other group are considered. For the present purpose the significant specializations of the meaning to speak are: Easter Island vanaga, to discourse, to address, also an argument, harangue, formula; Samoan vagana, which, besides the meaning already given, has also that of the speech of a tulafale or orator; and Maori wananga, to declaim.5 In view of the importance of the teaching of rhetoric in the Maori college, the origin of the application of this term to the knowledge imparted there seems plain.

The orator made his official appearance at many other ceremonial gatherings in New Zealand besides the two already mentioned. On the eve of a battle, in the face of the enemy, he found what was perhaps his greatest opportunity. “When the armies met in open field, they were drawn up by their respective leaders in deep columns face to face, accompanied with the hideous war dance. . . . The leaders generally exerted themselves to excite the passions of the army by addresses. The reasons of the conflict are set forth with all the peculiar powers of Maori oratory, and by the most impassioned appeals to the excited feelings of the untutored savage. The pride of the tribe, their honour, their wives and their children, the bravery of their ancestors, the spirits of the departed, their own lives now menaced—every fact and circumstance dear to them is invoked, and all the powers of their wild poetry and savage rhetoric employed to influence the passion of war and stimulate bravery.”6 The passage shows to what effective use the lore of the Whare-Wananga was put on such occasions.

An essential part of this ancient lore was the knowledge of incantations calculated to reinforce or make effective the mana or supernatural power inherent in the divine warrior chiefs who were the recipients of Whare-Wananga training. An incantation of this kind is translated by the late S. P. Smith in the article just quoted. It is intended to communicate power to the spear or other weapon:

“Beclouded be the heavens,
Cloud-covered.
‘Tis heard down here below,
Rolling is the thunder,
‘Tis heard down here below,
Echoing in the expanse.

The quivering spear, to surprise in flight.
Like the double sided shark
Is the fleetness of the footsteps,
Is the raging of the footsteps,
In blood are the footsteps,
Here the footsteps headlong rush.
‘Tis the footsteps of Tu!
Stride over the stars!
Stride over the moon!
Flee! Take flight !
Now the death stroke!”

Three staves, full length, each with intricate carvings along the body and stylized faces at the blade
3, 4, 5. New Zealand staves.
Museum Object Numbers: P3119A / P3119B / 18147A
Image Number: 167

Such an incantation might a warrior recite in a lull of the fighting or as he went to meet a foeman chosen from the opposing ranks. Before the enemy was faced in the open field, manoeuvres were held, ending with the war dance. In this, as in the haka, the fugleman was a noble. “The fugleman . . . springs to his feet and gives the whiti cry—Whiti! Whiti! E !—As one man, and with the same wild cry, the warriors rise for the war dance. . . . The weapons . . . are brandished in the air in tune with the . . . war song. The warriors are transformed for the time into the most demoniac looking beings it is possible to imagine. Every nerve and sinew is strained, the eyes roll wildly, or seem to stand forth from the head, tongues loll out to an incredible extent, [weapons] are brandished wildly but uniformly, and in perfect time the apparently frenzied warriors stamp with their bare feet on the ground until the earth trembles. They jump from the earth and descend with both feet flat on the ground, also in perfect time. But high above all else may be heard the thundering roar of the war song. Given five hundred natives performing the war dance, and long miles away, the hoarse chorus . . will be heard like the boom of the ocean surf on a distant coast.”7

The war dance, as performed on these occasions, became auspicious of the success or failure of an expedition. ” Should any man not keep time with the others, or not leap so high, these . . . were . . . evil omens. When called on to arise by the leader, should the warriors rise in perfect time, all together, that is . . . a good omen. But, if some are slow to rise, and lag behind, that is . . an evil omen for the expedition. In the case of the omens during the war dance being unpropitious, [they] would go through the whole performance again the next day . . . to obtain better omens. If no error was made by the performers . . . the party would proceed to the wars.”8

As leadership in war and in the ceremonies of preparation for it was the business of noblemen, so they led also in the reestablishment of peace and the rites which belonged to peacemaking. Here the orator had his formulae established by custom, though there was choice among a number, and variation within limits according to the necessities of the situation. “A party of fifty or one hundred men would visit an enemy’s country in order to make peace, and would be received with every evidence of fierce hostility, after the manner of the Maori. Then many speeches are made, threats are hurled at the visitors. After a while these actions and words of defiance calm down, and the two sides will probably hold a tangi and lament those who have been slain. Then a chief will arise and welcome the visitors: ‘Welcome! welcome in the light of day. Welcome, my brothers! Here let us turn to the peaceful ways of our ancestors. Let us walk in the light, beneath the shining sun of this day. . . . ‘ Then the kawa [formulae] for peace making are recited. . . .

“Then one of the visiting chiefs rises: . . . Let your weapons be turned in other directions. My brothers! The sun shines once more . . .

“Another chief rises: Welcome! welcome in the light of day . . .

“A chief of the . . . people of the place rises: Welcome! My brothers, let us respect the good counsel of our ancestors. We enter the light . . ‘

“Then the final karakia [incantation] is repeated.”

A curious piece of symbolism, vaguely reminiscent of the closing of the temple of Janus, was involved in the use of the expression “to erect a door of jade” at peacemaking ceremonies. The chief who was in charge of the negotiations, would, after his party had been formally welcomed, rise and say: “Welcome us. Here we come. Our tatau pounamu [door of jade] is such and such a mountain” — naming usually a neighbouring peak, but also sometimes some other natural feature. Greenstone to the Maori was what gold is to us. A door made of this precious material was of course out of the question. It was as if a municipal council, having imagination, but no funds, should propose the erection of a great Memorial, and by way of fulfilling the expectations of its constituents, rechristen Main Street Centennial Avenue. So, we learn, “when Tuhoe and the tribes of Waikare-moana and the coast tired of their long and bloody war, they resolved to make peace. Hipara said: I will give my daughter Hine-ki-runga in [sic] wife to Tuhoe, as an ending of the war.’ Nga-rangi-mataeo said: Let us have a tatau-pounarnu, that peace may never be broken.’ Then the hill Kuha-tarewa was set up as a wife, and the hill Tuhi-b-Kahu as a husband. By the union of these two hills the tatau-pounamu was raised and war ceased. . . . “9 This particular instance is a rather typical example of the substitution of symbol for act, in the conviction that the one, in its proper ritual setting, will be as effective as the other, which is characteristic of this side of their life. There is also a curious mixture of metaphors embodied in this special case of tatau-pounamu, which too is often an accompaniment of highly developed symbolisms of this kind.

Four heads or blades, close up, showing the pattern and face carvings in each
6, 7, 8, 9. Heads of hani or taiaha. No. 6 shows some of the details in the carving of No. 4, including the face which is halved by the edge of the blade.
Museum Object Numbers: P3119A / P4632 / P4631 P3118
Image Number: 166

Another most important occasion for the exercise of the high born orator’s function was at the birth of the eldest son of a family of the highest rank, who would succeed his father as an ariki, or divine priest chief. Here especially the formulae, which were of the nature of incantations, must be correctly reproduced by the leading speaker, who must be a relative of the father or mother to officiate at the first ceremony, that of the greeting of the child. On this occasion again the dramatic accompaniment of grimaces and violent movement was essential to the oration, which the speaker concluded with “an exhibition of his agility and powers of facial distortion . . . in which he pranced about, going through most amazing contortions, with glaring eyes and out-thrust tongue.”10

The almost invariable, if not essential, mark of the orator on the occasions described was the carrying of the weapon known as hani or taiaha. This was the favourite and traditional weapon of the Maori nobleman: in the legendary accounts of the slaying of various dragons, when the monsters were laid open, not only the bodies of noble victims were found but also their taiahas which had been swallowed together with whole armouries of other weapons.11

Some of the smaller and lighter examples, such as Fig. 3, had lost, with their size and weight, their practical usefulness and become merely marks of office or rank. This was also apparently the case with the examples made of whale’s bone and also, in the opinion of a recent writer,12 with those the blades of which were fully carved (Fig. 4). The former, at least, were in use before the Maori had come into contact with Europeans, as they are mentioned by Banks in the Journal which Hawkesworth used in preparing his account of Cook’s first voyage.” The chiefs when they came to attack us carried in their hands a kind of ensign of distinction in the same manner as ours do spontoons: these were either the rib of a whale as white as snow, carved very much and ornamented with dogs’ hair and feathers, or a stick about six feet long, carved and ornamented in the same manner, and generally inlaid with shell like mother of pearl.”13

Mr. Skinner thinks that the carving of the whole blade of the hani is an innovation and says that he has never seen an old example so carved. Such decoration, he justly remarks, “if executed on the grip, would impair the fighting value of the weapon.” Its application to the rest of the blade might also make it difficult to pass swiftly from guard to thrust when the blade was in contact with that of another weapon. But there is no reason why a fully carved hani should not have been used for the ceremonial purposes to which many of these staves were confined, except for the war dance, in which, indeed, the leader had his choice of weapons and was not restricted to the use of the hani. The expressions used by Bankins the passage quoted seem to imply that some of the wooden hani which he saw as well as those of whale’s bone were fully carved; carved very much” is not satisfactorily applicable to the decoration merely of the head of the weapon, although this is in fact the only part of the hani which is commonly so treated.

One of the specimens, Fig. 9, is ornamented just behind the head with red feathers and cord to which a tuft of dog’s hair is attached. These are applied to a foundation of cloth, and in perfect specimens of this form of ornament the tufts of hair form a continuous fringe below the band of feathers. Taiahas thus adorned had a special name, taiaha kura,14 and were very highly prized.

Five heads or blades, close up, showing the pattern and face carvings in each
10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Details of the carving of hani, including (No. 12) that figured at full lenght as No. 5.
Museum Object Numbers: 18147A / P3119B / 18147B / P2204 / 18125
Image Number: 165

The value set upon these weapons is characteristically shown by their employment as gifts at the third and final ceremony in which the birth of an ariki was celebrated. We are expressly told that they were valued for this purpose because of their customary use in ceremonies. Indeed the mana of the prince was, in Maori belief, undoubtedly communicated to the hani in a special degree, above that in which it flowed into everything he touched. All of an ariki’s personal property was, of course, taboo, and special taboos were attached to weapons; but it is of the hani that we hear as peculiarly prodigious, pregnant with portents and marvels. Famous taiahas, like the favourite swords of mediaeval heroes, were specially named. Matuakore, a taiaha once the property of a Maori hero, was regarded as in some sort a god. It gave omens: if the feathers of its ornamental band shone brightly, this was a sign of life and prosperity for the tribe; if the red of the feathers was pale, this betokened misfortune or death. A taiaha of this class in the hands of those who knew the proper formulae could foretell the result of a battle. Placed upon the ground in front of a war party, the taiaha would turn itself over before the eyes of the assembly, prognosticating ruin to the enemy.15

Our knowledge of the ancient customs of the people of Easter Island or Rapa Nui is scanty. Apparently there was a king of the whole island, which is only about fifty square miles in area, and the inhabitants were organized into clans under the leadership of chiefs, whose position was hereditary like that of the king. The exact nature of the connection of the sword staves (Figs. 1 and 2) with the class of chiefs is not easy to determine, but it seems fairly certain that they were insignia of the same kind as the hani of the Maori and had a similar relation to practices of which oratory was a formal accompaniment. It has been definitely stated that the ua were not weapons of war,16 but merely marks of authority. Yet they are so closely allied in form and in the chief feature of their carved ornament to the Maori hani, that it seems certain they must originally have been used in the same manner by a people whom various other considerations show to have been closely connected with the New Zealanders.

The explicit statement quoted from Paymaster Thompson as to the purely ceremonious use of the ua is supported by other writers, in the sense that they mention only its employment as an official baton and exclude it from the list of weapons. Thus Meinecke17 refers to it as “the outward mark of the chief’s office,” and specifies clubs of two kinds, neither of which resembled the ua—except in the ornamental carving of the heads of those of one kind—besides spears and stones, as their fighting implements. J. 0. Palmer18 “saw no large war clubs.” He describes the ua as a chief’s “baton of office.”

Although no information known to me enables us with certainty to assign to these staves an employment which can be called ceremonial rather than ceremonious, yet one statement connects them directly with oratory, in a manner which to some extent justifies our regarding them as having a sacred and inferentially a ceremonial character. This statement has been communicated to me by Dr. Ralph Linton of the Field Museum at Chicago, in the form of a note written by Mr. J. L. Young of Papeete, whom Dr. Linton regards as a trustworthy witness. In estimating the probability of the conclusions that may be drawn from the part of this statement which refers to the ancestry of the ua bearers, the assertion of Thompson that “the handle [of the uaj] was supposed to represent [sic] the effigy of the owner” has to be considered. In view of the nature of the acquaintance of the respective informants with the islanders and of what is known concerning the character of similar effigies in Polynesia, Mr. Young’s statement seems to have the greater probability. It is in part as follows:

Close up of stave heads, showing the detail of the head and  face carvings
Heads of the ua, Nos. 1 and 2.
Museum Object Numbers: P4806 / P3142A
Image Number: 36

“Ua: Staves or batons of hard wood having carved female faces on both sides of the upper end, used at tribal gatherings or councils by the representatives of certain families. The holder of such a staff was entitled to speak in the name of the family to which that particular staff belonged. The faces are supposed to represent the lineaments of the ancestors of the family through whom the title to the occupancy of the family lands originated.”

Assuming the correctness of this information and taking into consideration the sacred character attaching to Polynesian genealogy and to persons who had record of their ancestry in the manner implied, it would seem that these “representatives of certain families” were identical with the “old men”19 and chiefs20 who have hitherto been referrred to as the owners of the ua, and thus, if not the actual chiefs of the ten clans into which the population was divided, that they were at any rate persons of the same aristocratic class as that to which elsewhere in Polynesia chiefs of known and hence of divine lineage belonged.

It is thus probable that the ua had a connection with oratory similar to that of the Maori hani and also a similar connection with a class corresponding to that which in New Zealand monopolized that function of the public man. The analogy with privileged speakers elsewhere, as in both New Zealand and Samoa, points to the probability that these Easter Island heads of families, or chiefs, were also the orators to whom Thompson refers when he says: ” Prominent among the ancient customs were feasts to celebrate the return of the different seasons and various anniversaries in their history, such as the landing of Hotu-Metua at Anakena Bay. Upon the latter occasion the ancient traditions were repeated by recognized orators.”213 Hotu-metua was the first in the traditionary line of kings of Easter Island.

Another possibility with regard to the status of the ua bearer is suggested by the first passage in Thompson’s paper in which these staves are mentioned. It is stated there that the ua “was carried as a baton before the chiefs.”22 This statement, however, is not, as far as I know, supported by any other writer, and does not occur in Thompson’s own formal definition of an ua. (p. 535), in which they are said to have been used as “batons of office by the chiefs.” Although the first statement seems a considered one, it may be suggested, in view of the lack of supporting evidence, that it was not the result of independent inquiry, but perhaps due to a misreading of Meinecke’s assertion23 that “the outward sign of a chief’s office is the carrying of a long stick, etc.,” as if there were an implication that the carrying and the ownership of the ua were to be attributed to different persons. Probably no great weight is in any case to be attributed to this isolated statement. If it were supported it might imply a situation more analogous to that which obtained in Samoa than to the Maori state of affairs with regard to the orator. In Samoa a chief had his tulafale or official orator, who was drawn from a class below his own, which, although extremely influential, to the point, indeed, of being able to depose a chief, did not share in the sacredness of the chiefly office.

The resemblance between the Maori hani and the Easter Island ua is obvious. In typical examples of both ua and hani the eyes are inlaid; in the former case with bone and obsidian, in the latter, with shell. Both weapons consist essentially of a long blade flaring towards one extremity and passing towards the other into a grip the limit of which is marked by carving in relief representing human heads facing in opposite directions. The important difference between them consists in the presence in the Maori sword staff of a pointed portion extending beyond the carved heads which in the Easter Island examples are turned the other way and correspond to the pommel of our swords. This portion is not merely ornamental, though it is made to represent a protruded tongue, but has an important function in the employment of the hani as a weapon. In combat the hani was grasped with both hands in front of the carving, the point or tongue being held downwards, and the blow was given with either edge of the blade. If the opponent broke through the guard and thus got too close for effective use of the blade against him, the weapon was reversed and the tongue end brought into play for thrusting.

In an article published six years ago in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute,24 Mr. Skinner has put forward various considerations which point to the derivation of the hani and other similar two-handed clubs of the Maori from Melanesian forms. In an Appendix he draws attention to the evidently close alliance in form and function between the hani and the ua. The latter he considers “a coordinate or derivative” of the former. If a derivative, it would be difficult to account for the absence of even a vestigial tongue or point from the Easter Island staff ; it is more likely that it is a development, coordinate in other respects with the hani, from a Melanesian form of club lacking the point.

The essential form of the strongly stylized face from which the tongue of the hani protrudes is the same in all the examples figured here and in a previous number of the JOURNAL, Vol. II, p. 35. The pure elements of this form may be seen in the unfinished example, Fig. 10. This peculiar conventional mode of dealing with the human face in Maori woodcarvings, with its probable significance and its relation to the tattoo of the warrior was considered in an article in the JOURNAL for December, 1920. The exaggerated form in which the tongue appears in the case of these weapons is obviously explicable from the manner in which the hani was used in fighting.

The three examples with carved blades show each a different fashion in decoration, all the elements of which—straight line, punctuate line, interrupted arcs, scrolls, and spirals—may be matched in other authentic examples of Maori woodcarving, though the scroll or arabesque and spiral usually predominate. The irregular treatment of the scroll work on the tongue of Fig. 8 and its association with equally irregular rectilinear ornament on the face is unusual, but this large hani—eighty three inches in length and a most formidable weapon—is an undoubtedly genuine example of considerable age, showing more wear in its carved portion than any other of several old weapons in the collection. Five of the examples figured have or formerly had the eyes of the human faces inlaid with shell. This includes the faces—one so placed that a side appears on each face of the blade near the edge—inserted at two points in the otherwise purely conventional carving of the blade of Fig. 4.

The triangular grouping of scrolls, or some modification of that arrangement, is a conspicuous feature of the carving on the blade of Fig 4. The association of this pattern with the lower part of the weapon seems appropriate in view of the common use of the same design in the tattooing of the leg.25 But it was not confined to that use; it is the principal motif of a moko or face tattoo figured by General Robley after drawings made during Cook’s first voyage,26 and it frequently occurs in that part of a moko occupying the space between and above the curves which repeat and accentuate the line of the eyebrows.27 In the latter case the design is usually incomplete, a part of it being lost in the hair.

In Folk-Lore for December, 1917, Mr. Henry Balfour relates the famous colossal stone statues of Easter Island, as to the manner in which the heads are sculptured, with what he regards as a Melanesian (Solomon Islands) prototype. One of the features on which he relies for the establishment of an analogy is the form of the nose in the stone heads, which, as he points out, is different from that of the small wooden Easter Island images. The prominent aquiline noses of the latter differ as much from the corresponding feature of the heads of the ua, which are low bridged and long like those of the large stone images.

A remarkable feature, both of the ua and of the small full length wooden figures of Easter Island, several examples of which may be seen in the MUSEUM, is the prominence given to the cheek bones in the representation of the human face. Perhaps it is not inapposite, in connection with the subject of Melanesian affinities, for which the evidence is so strong in both Easter Island and New Zealand, to point to the sculptural exaggeration of the same feature, not in the Solomon Islands, it is true, but in another Melanesian locality, New Caledonia, where it finds marked expression in the large human heads carved on the doorway slabs of which there are two fine examples here.


1 The Maoris of New Zealand, p. 344.
2 J. M. Brown, Maori and Polynesian, London, 1907, pp. 209, 210.
3 S. P. Smith, The Lore of the Whare-Wananga, Memoirs of the Polynesian Society, III, Part I. New Plymouth, New Zealand, 1913.
4 LOC. cit., p. 108.
5 William Churchill, Easter Island, s.v. vanaga, p. 268; Elsdon Bea, Notes on the Art of War, Journal of the Polynesian Society, XIII (1904), p. 4.
6 S. P. Smith, Wars of the Northern against the Southern Tribes: cited from the “Lectures” of Buddle in the Karere Maori newspaper, 1851. Loc. cit., VIII (1899), p. 159.
7 Elsdon Best, loc. cit., XII (1903), p. 77.
8 P. 78.
9 Pp. 198-201.
10 Elsdon Best, Ceremonial Performances pertaining to Birth . . Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, XLIV (1914), p. 142.
11 A. Hamilton, The Art Workmanship of the Maori Race in New Zealand, Dunedin, N. Z., 1896. Pp. 175, 176.
12 H. D. Skinner, Origin and Relationship of Hani, Tewha-Tewha, and Pou-Whenua, Man, 1916, No. 97. See also The Two Handed Clubs of the Maoris, Journal of the Anthropological Institute, Vol. XXI (N. S.), 1918.
13 The Journal of Sir Joseph Banks, edited by Hooker, London, 1896. P. 246.
14 Journal of the Polynesian Society, XXIII (1914), p. 222.
15 Loc. cit. XI (1902), pp. 68, 245; XIII (1904), p. 74; XIV (1905), pp. 55, 219; Tregear, The Maori Race, p. 318; Hamilton, pp. 183, 184.
16 W. J. Thompson, Te Pito to Henua, or Easter Island, Report of the IL S. National Museum for the year ending June 30, 1889, pp. 475, 535.
17 Die Inseln des stillen Oceans, quoted by W. Churchill, Easter Island, p. 336.
18 Visit to Easter Island in 1868, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, XL (1870), p. 172.
19 J. P. Harrison in Journal of the Anthropological Institute, I11 (1873-74), p. 374.
20 Meinecke in Churchill, p. 336; Thompson, p. 535; Palmer, p. 172.
21 Te Pito to Henua, p. 468.
22 Loc. cit., p. 475.
23 Easter Island, p. 336.
24 The Two-handed Clubs of the Maori. Vol. XXI (N. S.), pp. 198-213. See also R. Linton, The Material Culture of the Marquesas Islands, Memoirs of the Bernice Panahi Bishop Museum, Vol. VIII, p. 396.
25 Robley, Moko or Maori Tattooing, Figs. 13, 16, 17, IS; Hamilton, Maori Art, p. 313.
26 Robley, pp. 5-8.
27 Robley, Figs. 15, 55, 155, 165; Hamilton, Plate XX, Plate XVIII.

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Hall, Henry Usher. "The Orator’s Staff." The Museum Journal XV, no. 4 (December, 1924): 295-309. Accessed October 15, 2024. https://www.penn.museum/sites/journal/1282/


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