147: An unrecorded Patu

This article is from the notes of G.L Adkin and from an article written in 1957. This Patu's absence from the museum records is the most worrying. For I imagine no museum would wish to show such an item with such strong Melanesian links, it's obvious age, and the extraordinary depth at which it was found. It almost resembles a throwing stone of the Charrúa from Uruguay - but with a handle

It was found, as many unusual objects are, in the Marlborough Sounds region of the South Island has presented a number of ethnologic features unusual within the confines of the main islands of New Zealand - pit dwellings, flights or tiers of undefended habitation terraces, probable cremation sites, a tomb of piled stones containing a crouched human burial, unconventional styles in ear-ornaments and carved figures, the tribrach, the stone eggs, the bow, the boomerang, the wooden spear, the korotangi bird, Te Uenuku, the simian ornament, the Melanesian style wooden stick god, and many others - but one of the strangest item of any to date is a stone patu of unique design for the New Zealand area, reminiscent indeed of the medieval mace of Western Europe. Nothing like it exists anywhere else in Polynesia (this is typical of many articles found here and nowhere else in Polynesia.

This remarkable implement was handed in to an Education Department Correspondence School exhibition of pupils' work held in Wellington during June, 1957, by a parent, Mr. A. Stratford, a resident of McLaren Bay, Croixelles Harbour, western Marlborough Sounds. They had held this artifact for many years. On a chance visit to this exhibition this striking artifact at once caught the writer's eye. In depositing the patu, Mr. Stratford had stated that he had noticed the object on a lorry-load of gravel and had promptly secured it. The lorry-team had been obtaining gravel for road surfacing from near the inner edge of a stretch of shingly sea-beach in Okiwi Bay, Croixelles Harbour, and the particular load in which the patu was found had come from a depth of about five feet.

A first thought on this information was that the depth of five feet could well represent, in the specified locality, the accumulation of a period of no more than a little over one hundred years, for this reason - at the time of the great 1855 earthquake the Marlborough shores of Cook Strait are known to have been slightly depressed in relation to the then sea-level. Therefore, since that date beach detritus could easily have buried to a depth of five feet or so an object lying on the original ground level and close to the former shore-line prior to the 1855 seismic disturbance. This, however, would neglect any consideration of how long a period the object had lain there prior to its burial by an advancing beach deposit. In any case the obviously archaic aspect of this patu would assign it to one of the earlier cultures, and a sand-blasted condition of one of its surfaces makes it probable that it lay there for a lengthy period prior to A.D. 1855.

Further information regarding the shoreline topography at Okiwi Bay confirmed the idea of a beach advance due to a general land subsidence. A section of the shore of the bay, between the Hapiata and the Pouawhariki streams, is known as Matapahi Beach and consists of wave-piled shingle. On their lower courses the streams referred to had formed a common floodplain - a low-lying, gently seaward-sloping flat. The Matapahi shingle beach overlaps the seaward edge of this flat and has ponded the minor drainage to form a belt of swamp. These conditions indicate the building forward of a shingle beach-ridge on land undergoing subsidence, the subsidence taking place at the time of the historic 1855 earthquake and probably also in A.D. 1460, when the traditional earlier Haowhenua earthquake had raised the land on the Wellington side of Cook Strait, and presumably as in 1855, produced a contemporary lowering of the Marlborough Sounds coast. It can be postulated that the patu here under consideration had been dropped and lost by its primitive owner and was lying on the surface of the seaward border of the alluvial flat of the Hapiata and Pouawharika streams prior to the later date given, and quite probably to the earlier one also, of the two land-lowering movements. The landward advance of the shingle beach caused by one, or both, of these subsidences resulted in the burial and preservation of the patu from early times until brought to light by the recent excavations for material by the road-construction team.

A second feeling when confronted with this Marlborough mace-like patu was one of surprise at its New Zealand origin rather than a Chatham Islands one. Okiwi Bay at Croixelles Harbour is an out of the way spot and a local origin seems more probable than an overseas one. The source of the material of which the patu is made was shown on investigation to decisively eliminate any probability of a “foreign” origin. The material from which the patu was made is a Permian basalt such as occurs in the Upper Te Anau Group of New Zealand rock formations. This ancient igneous rock was recognised by Dr. H. J. Harrington, petrologist, N.Z. Geological Survey. A broad belt of Upper Te Anau rocks extends in a south-north direction over the locality where the patu was found, hence its derivation from one of the local interstratified basaltic lavas of that Group is a reasonable conclusion. This basalt (as exemplified by the patu) has a dark grey-green colour, is fine-grained, and without phenocrysts other than an occasional one of pale green pyroxene. This determination of rock-type and geological age for this unique form of patu from one of the main islands of New Zealand is of considerable importance. On account of its striking resemblance in design to certain types of Chatham Islands patu, it might be argued that it was originally derived from the Chathams and is representative of the Moriori culture. This, however, is definitely negatived on several grounds: the Chatham Islands basalt is of different appearance to that of which the patu is made, being grey to black in colour as against dark grey-green (Dr. W. A. Watters, pers. comm.); the Chatham Islands basalt is of much more recent geological age, being middle to late Tertiary, instead of late Palaeozoic; there was no known Chathams to New Zealand connection prior to European times, hence importation in early times from the former to the latter was not possible.

The only link available, therefore, to account for the typological similarity seems to be one of like material culture, by contemporary or approximately contemporary migrations of peoples of the same racial origin, one to the Chathams, the other (or others) to New Zealand - direct separate migrations of groups of the same racial stock, who would carry similar or initially identical traditional styles and techniques in material culture to both these places. The recognition of such a series of separate migrations of groups of racial and cultural identity from central regions to outer islands would illumine and help solve not a few current obscurities in the ethnology of the New Zealand-Chathams region, as the writer has already repeatedly postulated for the New Zealand sector. Local development and variation would explain subsequent minor differences, especially if the effect of the environmental factor is given due credit.

This patu is not necessarily a weapon of war; it may well have been a means of giving an effective end to a suitably plump specimen of the then living moa. This remarkable and obviously very effective lethal implement, again stressing its probable ceremonial employment, bears the stamp of belonging to a time long past, and with comparative studies should yield valuable information regarding the cultural affinity of the people who used it and at that time occupied the Marlborough Sounds terrain.

From its shape and special component parts it seems likely that this patu was used both as a thrusting and striking implement. It has a massive distal chisel edge—the thrusting component—and laterally has three short strong spikes on each side, each set forming the striking edges. The shaping of the implement was done by three processes—chipping, bruising, and filing - the second process being the dominant method employed in the reduction of the initial elongated, largely joint-bounded slab of rock. By reason of the initial slightly bent form of the original slab, the hand-grip of the patu is set at an angle of about 13 degrees to the median axis of the body of the implement. Because of this only one satisfactory hand-hold is probable; this gives the implement a single definitely orientated position as held, and this determines an anterior and a posterior surface respectively, also left and right lateral edges - terms which in this example may be properly and conveniently used for purposes of description.

Dimensions. Length of patu, 295 mm. (11 5/8 in.); length of hand-grip, 132 mm. (5 3/16 in.). Breadth at distal chisel edge, 60 mm. (2 3/8 in.); breadth at distal pair of lateral spike tips (original), 95 mm. (3 ¾ in.); at middle pair of spike tips (maximum breadth of implement), 101 mm. (c. 4 in.); at proximal pair of spike tips, 90 mm. (c. 3 9/16 in.). Breadth at base of grip, 54 mm. (2 1/8 in.); at poll end of grip, 30 mm. (1 3/16 in.). The maximum thickness of the implement is at the base of the hand grip where, for a distance of 1 ¼ inches, it is 32 mm. (1 ¼ in.). An inch and a quarter back from the distal chisel edge, the thickness is down to 15 mm. (c. 9/16 in.), and the chisel edge itself is somewhat blunt, with a width of one to two millimetres. Weight of implement, 2 lb. 3 oz.

The posterior side has a bruised surface over its entire area but exhibits the appearance of having been subsequently subjected to sandblast, which indicates that the implement lay on a land surface posterior side uppermost for some considerable period of time prior to its final burial under accumulating coarse beach detritus. The anterior side (shown above) is also largely shaped by bruising, but this side is also extensively defined by slightly concave joint-planes or a superficially weathered outcrop surface, being oxidized to a rusty red-brown colour. The bruised surfaces and areas have a fairly even surface but there is no sign of any attempt to finish by grinding. The distal chisel-edge was sharpened by still visible fine secondary chipping on both sides. Chipping also defines the poll. The lateral spikes were fashioned by means of an elongated file of some suitable abrasive material such as an indurated siliceous sandstone, to cut the intervening macro-notches. The effective edge of the file used must have been about three-quarters of an inch across at its edge if of flat shape, or in diameter, if cylindrical. As a preliminary, four semicircular notches were cut in the appropriate position on each lateral edge of the roughed out implement to define the spikes, the distal pair of these being the start of the reduction of the width of the body of the implement to produce the chisel edge. The process involved the removal of one side of each unit of the pair of distal notches. In the same way the pair of proximal notches were filed away on one side to- 90 make the hand-grip; careful chipping may have been employed to diminish the time and labour involved in the considerable reduction required to accomplish this part of the task; the anterior side of the hand-grip shows some traces of this ancillary process. The intermediate notches on each of the lateral edges were carried, in the process of cutting by filing, on to both anterior and posterior sides of the implement as shallow but well-defined grooves collinear with the lateral nothing. The spacing of the spikes, i.e., the width of the macro-notches, is fairly consistent but differs a little on the respective lateral edges; on the right lateral edge the spacing is 30 mm. and 30 mm., on the left lateral, 42 mm. and 39 mm., but the widest spacing given is in excess of normal due to an unintended deviation from symmetry. The implement is strongly proportioned and easy to manipulate for either thrusting or striking. It remains in a well-preserved condition, the only subsequent damage worth mention being a pair of chips off the apex of the distal right-lateral spike, one on each of the main surfaces.

The method of producing the lateral spikes of this implement by an adoption and development of the serial-notching architype and technique offers the chief clue in determining the particular cultural affinity of a very distinctive artifact. Serial notching was an important symbolic and art motif of the earliest Polynesian immigrants of the New Zealand region. It was apparently the predominant convention used in arts and crafts among the Moriori of the Chathams, and was much used in the ancient Waitaha culture of both the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Its esoteric significance has not yet been elucidated, being anterior to the range of tradition of the later local cultures, but that serial notching had a specific meaning and an amuletic potency in the cult of its period seems a reasonable inference. This motif often figured in amulets as the representative sign of some guardian influence but it, in slightly modified form, is also found adapted to practical use in certain kinds of utilitarian, but probably in part ritual, articles where it could advantageously be applied. Such utilitarian implements included carefully cut serrated-edged flesh cutters and, as has now come to light within the New Zealand mainland area, a spike-edged patu, both with certainty genetically derived from the amuletic serial-notching motif. It is intended to pursue this line of research in a future paper but the present requirement needs only some suggestion regarding the probable provenance of the Okiwi Bay patu.

The motif of amuletic serial notching (always in stone and bone in the New Zealand area as distinct from the taratara-o-kai in the wood-carving of the Fleet-Maori) is restricted so far as is known to the ancient Waitaha material culture, and the Okiwi Bay patu is therefore tentatively ascribed to that culture or, at least, directly derived from it. This diagnosis of origin thus postulates three direct migrations of ancient Polynesians of initially the same branch of that people (proto-Waitaha plus ancestral Moriori) from an Oceanic homeland to Rekohu (the Chathams) and to Aotearoa (New Zealand—there, first to Te Ikaaui Maui and later to Te Wai-pounamu) respectively. The traditions of the Moriori and also of the early descendants of Rakaihautu (ancestral head of the South Island Waitaha) support, indeed affirm, such direct migrations to their final destination. The North Island advent of the earlier Waitaha migration transcends tradition but archaeological evidence proves their incoming and occupation. The serial notching motif supplies a strong link in the evidence of the original mid-Pacific cultural unity of the people of these three early migrations to marginal lands in the south-west.

Before his death, Mr. Herries Beattie, of Waimate, supplied an account of its probably use from local Maori, that being the killing of captured or cornered moa (obviously not the giant moa). Mr. Beattie was informed by a number of the old native people of his acquaintance that, when captured or incapacitated by any of the snaring methods listed above, the usual method of killing the moa for food was by striking it on the head with a patu or toki. Now considering local Maori had not seen a moa for at least 500 years or more, we find this more a guess but still a likely use. The deduction from the shape of this unusual spiked patu described, and it's use, in this case ceremonial, in the hands of a non-war practicing people, is therefore confirmed by the testimony of an acknowledged authority on South Island native traditional lore.

*****

So back to this missing items location and provenance. If available for viewing it would be labelled as Maori in origin, despite the fact no Polynesian tool of any description exists. The conclusion would likely be made that way because, of course, no one was here in these islands before Maori *. That would seem then, the full nature of scientific and archaeological analysis. But where the hell is this item if the last time it was seen was in 1957? If in fact a museum has it, you can be 100% sure they will not show it for they would have to disclose the location in which it was found. - it would be safer for them to keep it's existence hidden. If still in private hands, this artefact MUST come to light.