Maori and Polynesian: their origin, history and culture
The Human Figures in the Canoe Ornamentation — are unstoried
The Human Figures in the Canoe Ornamentation
are unstoried
(3) As for the figures that adorn the bow and stern pieces, the two that look into the canoe are evidently guardian, perhaps ancestral, images; the huaki, in the bow, generally in a contemplative attitude, the puhi-kai-ariki, in the stern, being in an attitude of energy, as if engaged in propelling the ship, often puffing his cheeks. The tete, or figurehead, even though evidently, from its legs and high head and protruding tongue, in its origin a human figure, has, with its arms thrown back like wings, and its sharp tongue, taking on the semblance of a beak, come to be more like a sea bird preparing to rise from the water. The transformation is probably deliberate; for the great god of the Easter Islanders, Mekemeke, is a composite of bird and man, or sometimes bird and turtle. The prostrate figure under the two spirals is said to be Maui, a most appropriate symbol for a far-voyaging canoe. Then there is an elaborate coil-ornamentation under the boarding or deck on which Maui lies; and in most cases the snake-like intercoiling has a monstrous head, with two long tusks, or tubes, bending out from the mouth, as in the marakihau of some east coast carved houses. It is evidently a taniwha, or sea monster, probably a composite of a walrus and a sea-snake. The two tusk-like mid-ribs that form the core of the high stern-carving seem also a reminiscence of the walrus. They are generally carved on their surfaces, and in most the bent point of the smaller one is held either by an arm manifestly exerting force, or by a twisted rope-bight or by a hook. These seem to point either to some mythical mastery of a tusked sea animal or to methods of catching it.
(4) There ought to be legends connected with each of these figures, as there are about almost every item of the important Maori implements and arts and customs; but none have been reported. It looks much as if their origin had been submerged in the submersion of the lore of the aboriginals that were mastered or absorbed. Had these carvings been pure Polynesian, it would have been the duty of the priests in wharekura, if not of the artists themselves, to hand on the legendary story of their origin. The great carved war canoes were a specialty of the east coast tribes, and were traded off to other tribes. And the east coast is that region which, according to tradition, absorbed most of the aboriginal blood. The carving families of the natives were evidently, taken over by the Polynesian immigrants. And as usual the legends of the new-comers and aristocrats obliterated those of the absorbed tribes. There was no human blood spilt to celebrate either the beginning or the completion of these works of art, as there was at the founding of a great house or the launching of a great canoe or even at the tattooing of a chief's daughter. And this again seems to point to some racial difference between the origin of this art of maritime carving and that of the mere art of canoe-building.