157: The Origin of the Patu?

Where did the Maori patu come from? There was no such club in the Pacific Islands. We have long said the patu was something the Polynesians saw (along with many other new things) when they first arrived and intermingled with those already here. But where did they come from and where did they get that shape from the Maori copied?

There has already been a proven connection to Maori and the earliest peoples of Taiwan. But did you know there is an almost identical club in Taiwan. And did you know it was called the batu? Patu - Batu... really? Oddly, this shape is only repeated in NZ, no where else in the Pacific and has an almost identical name. There is more unknown about New Zealand than there is that is known.

Located in Kaihua Village, Xiaying Township, Tainan County, Taiwan, there is a temple named Wu'an Palace, which holds 5 prehistoric Ba pattern stone tools. The locals regard them as "the weapons of the gods", and draw a command on their surface. , Dedicated to the main shrine in the temple. These five "artifacts" were found in 1986.

The five stone artifacts preserved in Wu'an Palace are all thin, flat, flat objects with a huge body. The largest object is 798mm and the smallest specimen is 559mm. Now size is an issue for some because these are clearly not tools or weapons and are made out of metamorphic sandstone.

Batu's of Taiwan

Comparison to butt shape of Moriori clubs

Single polished stone Batu

Nine Batu found in Yingpu Village in 1965

Neolithic Batu found in the area of ​​Xinglong Park, Wenshan District, Taipei City in 2007. Four of these have the ridgeline similar to that found on some MoriOri short weapons.

The Paiwan group of aborigines, found in the mountains of southern Taiwan, consist of the Paiwan, the Rukai and the Puyuma. Their total population of about 60,000 repre­sents the largest group of aborigines. It is only in these three tribes that a social class system exists in which the upper class or nobility enjoys such exclusive privileges as body tattooing and house carving. That is a hint as well; it's identical to the Maori social system. Treatment of motifs and their composition in Paiwan woodcarving resemble those found in the whole Pacific area.

Human figures with protruding tongues are also widely distributed. It is seen among the Paiwan, in Borneo, New Guinea, New Zealand, on the northwest coast of America and even among the Aztecs of Mexico.

A - Paiwan, C - American NW, D - Maori

The people of Paiwan are the only ones to have had a shape reminiscent of the Maori patu and as it turns out Maori are connected to Taiwan. Did the Taiwanese come south and into Polynesia while a small group ended up here and existing for 1000-2000 years before Polynesian arrived and they saw the design from those? We know a people existed here before Polynesians; we know that! Even Maori know that. But where they came from is irrelevant. We are still more interested in what DNA will confirm on the bones of the tall ones.