# Pounamu: Notes on New Zealand Greenstone/Chapter 2

Chapter II.
WORKING POUNAMU.
ROCKS have been discovered in various localities in New Zealand whose surfaces are scored with deep grooves. There the men of old were wont to perform the grinding and rubbing processes whereby greenstone implements were smoothed and made symmetrical. It is astonishing how well formed and true in outline are these stone implements of the Maori. The labour involved in their manufacture was enormous. Weapons, tools and ornaments formed from rough pieces of greenstone by appliances of the most primitive character, were brought to a very high degree of finish by grinding them by hand with pieces of rough sandstone, the work being expedited by the use of sand-grit and water. The stone was sawn by rubbing the edge of one slab with another, water being allowed to drip continuously but slowly from a calabash hung above the stone, a constant supply of the finest quartz sand being meanwhile dropped into the groove by the workman.
The only mechanical appliance of which we have any knowledge, that can safely be described as the invention of these workers of stone, is the tuwiri, an implement used for boring holes. Of this ingenious drill, with which the Maori were very expert, a ​ Figure 2.specimen may be seen in the museum at Auckland. It consists, as our illustration shews, of four parts. The first is a rod of wood called the pou, about two feet in length and three-quarters of an inch in thickness, shewn upright in the accompanying illustration. To the lower end of the pou is fastened the boring point of mata (obsidian), kiripapa (flint), or some other hard stone, chipped to a rough point. The pou passes through a hole in the middle of the porotiti, a disk of heavy wood (maire is that most often used) which is firmly fastened to the pou at about one-third of its height, and serves the purpose of increasing by its weight the momentum of the implement. The kurupae, that is, the cross-piece shewn in Figure 2, is a shaped piece of wood, twenty inches long and two inches wide in the middle, where there is a hole through which the pou passes, fitting loosely. The aho is a cord of plaited fibre fastened to the top of the pou and having its two ends tied to either extremity of the kurupae, which thus is held at right angles to the pou.
The method of operating the drill is as follows:—the boring point at the lower end of the rod being placed upon the spot where a hole is to be made, the cross-piece is twirled round until the cord, now twisted about the upper part of the upright rod, raises the cross-piece up the rod, up which it slides easily. A downward pressure of the operator’s hand upon the cross-piece now causes it to slide back down the rod, unwinding the cord as it descends. The rotation thus given, which is both increased and controlled by the heavy disk, causes the cord ​to wind round the rod in the opposite direction and again to raise the horizontal cross-piece. The operator's hand constantly resting upon the cross-piece, exercises pressure only in a downward direction. Sand and water are employed to increase the cutting power of the boring point, which needs frequent renewal or rechipping, and the boring is done from alternate sides of the stone operated upon until a hole is pierced.
In light work, such for instance as grooving an eardrop, only one hand would be placed upon the kurupae, but in the heavier work required for boring a patu or stone club, pressure is exercised by both hands in order to give additional force to the boring point.
Another and more primitive drill consisted of a wooden rod pointed with a small piece of basalt or obsidian and weighted with two heavy stones lashed to opposite sides of it. A string attached to the other end of the rod caused it to revolve, and a piece of perforated wood placed upon the object kept the point of the instrument continually in the same spot.
Canon Stack, in 1879, obtained from Henare Tawha, a Ngaitahu chief who lived at Wairewa, some interesting particulars about the working of greenstone, and the other tools used by the native craftsmen. The father of the chief was Te Pi, a skilful maker of weapons, tools and ornaments of pounamu, who lived at Taumutu, where a great many people were employed in this manufacture. The stone was brought on men's backs from the west coast over the ranges by way of the Kaniere pass. The tools employed by these workers were as follows:—
Kuru was a hammer of greenstone, rather larger than a man's head, with which great blocks of pounamu were broken up, grooves being first made in the blocks by friction with kiripaka ​or mica schist in order to control the direction of the fractures. Hoanga was the stone used for cutting and polishing. Parihi kohatu was a sharp fragment of kara which seems to be a generic term for trap or any other hard stone. Pirori was the name given by Mr. Stack's informant to the drill.
Many of the Maori weapons were made by old men who were past the age for serving as warriors. The war-adze, however, which, as will be seen later, was a special emblem of chieftainship, was made by no one but chiefs, who, being themselves tapu conferred a certain sacredness on this particular weapon.