AFTER lying in private hands and remaining undescribed for over forty years, a second specimen of the rare (until now unique in the North Island), elongated, mere-like patu from the Horowhenua district of Western Wellington has recently come to light. The first example of this type was found in association with a chevron pendant as grave goods in Burial No. 3 of the Otororoa group of ancient burials of the Horowhenua dune-belt (Adkin, Horo-whenua, (1948), pp. 69–70, Figs. 6 and 63). This second specimen should be sufficient to establish the weapon as belonging to a definite type instead of being merely an unusual archaic form.
The site of the second find was an ancient pre-Muau-poko burial place on the Totara sheep-run adjacent to the lower course of the Manawatu River and about half a mile west-south-west of the Whirokino 1 Bridge. About the year 1910, Mr. Neville Willoughby, the then owner of the property, was riding past this spot and observed a wind-disinterred burial. The skull, and the whalebone patu that had been buried with its former owner, were taken and kept for many years. Finally, the skull (which would probably have provided decisive cranial measurements) was discarded and all trace lost. The full significance of the patu was not appreciated until seen by the writer who at once recognized the identity of type with that of the Otororoa Burial No. 3.
The previous owner of the property, Mr. E. Creswell, knew of this ancient burial place during his residence there, and recalls that about 1908, wind-erosion disinterred three human skeletons. Their attitude clearly showed that the bodies had been buried in an upright crouched position. These burials were thus precisely similar, in preparation of the bodies and mode of interment, to those at Otororoa Ridge.
Though identical in type the two known specimens of patu under discussion differ in certain details, some of the - 312 differences being due to the anatomically different portions of bone used to fashion them. Both are of whalebone. The original specimen was cut from a thick strip of bone, possibly a rib, and reduced so that all surfaces of the resultant patu were artificially shaped. In the case of the second patu, however, the bone selected contributed to a considerable degree to the final form of the weapon (or, more probably, baton of authority or rank), and though imposing certain minor limitations on the ultimate shape, reduced the amount of work required and facilitated the refined finish of the completed article. The bone referred to was the scapula of a pinnipedian or a cetacean, apparently that of one of the lesser whales, providing a thin, nearly flat slab of bone, smooth-surfaced, with only minor undulations. The making of the patu from this raw material required only the cutting out and shaping of the periphery of the weapon (or baton), and the smoothing of this outer edge to bring it into keeping with the natural smooth surfaces of front and back.
The only disadvantageous feature in the use of a whale scapula for the purpose of fashioning a flat-shaped, cutting patu of the kind in view would be an insufficient thickness to provide a substantial rounded handle knob. For this reason the end knob of the Totara Run patu is concave on one side and nearly flat on the other, and thus has the form of a knob only by reason of the lateral projections (see Fig. 1).
Other points of difference between the Otororoa patu and the one from Totara Run are three in number. At the base of the blade and located on the lateral edges, the Otororoa specimen has a pair of small, sharply defined notches, one on either side. In the Totara Run patu these are replaced by a pair of trifid lugs, slightly recessed, but projecting in each case about 1/16 inch. The function of the notches and lugs is not certain but it is clear that they served, equally well in either form, some definite and useful purpose. Apart from this the lugs have a decidedly ornamental effect and it is evident that such was intended as shown by their trifid form. The other patu was embellished with a distinctive human face on the end knob, and the substitution of plain notches on that specimen for the ornamental lugs on the other may be interpreted as a subtle - 313 avoidance of over-ornamentation in a desire to emphasize a symbolic motif.
A second minor divergence in detail between the two patu is the lack of a thong hole in the Otororoa one and the presence of this feature in the other. The perforation in the Totara Run specimen is bi-conical and located, as is usual, in the hand-grip knob; in this case, the knob being concave on one side and therefore abnormally thin from front to back, the perforation is of short length, being only ⅛ inch.
The third difference in form between the two patu is also a slight one and is directly consequent on the selection of the two anatomically-different bone parts utilized. The Otororoa patu expands to a low longitudinal ridge on the blade faces; the blade surfaces of the Totara Run specimen, being the natural back and front surfaces of a cetacean scapula, have not been shaped to this form, each having (transversely) a flattened sigmoidal curvature—the form of the original natural surfaces.
A matter of significance is the close approximation in size and proportions of the two patu discussed. The following are the dimensions of the Totara Run patu together with those of the Otororoa specimen given in parentheses for comparison: Length, 19 in. (20 in.); maximum breadth of blade, 2 13/16 in. (2¾ in.); maximum thickness, nearly ½ in. (⅞ in.); distance from lateral lugs to proximal end, 7⅛ in. (notches to end, 6⅞ in.).
With regard to affinitive forms of this archaic type, the nearest that has come to the writer's notice is one figured by Hamilton. Of over sixty specimens of patu shown in his Art Workmanship of the Maori Race, only one (see Pl. 32, fig. 2) has a close resemblance in essential characters to the Horowhenua patu here described. Hamilton states that the patu figured by him is a form “peculiar to the southern part of the South Island.” The southern part of the South Island, especially the shores of Foveaux Strait, is notable for the occurrence of artifacts of archaic type, many of which seem to have been in use by the local people until the European advent. It has been shown by several writers that this locality became the final sanctuary of the last remnants of the pre-Fleet inhabitants, the Waitaha and the Ngatimamoe. It seems certain that the material culture peculiar to the area belongs to these people.
The evidence from these widely separated places, Horowhenua and Southland, is in harmony and corroborative. The second patu here recorded, like the other previously described from Otororoa, undoubtedly can be attributed to the ancient Waitaha of Horowhenua, and the two establish an additional criterion type serviceable in the identification of Waitaha culture when and wherever it may be met with in both North and South Islands.