The Timo or Timotimo or Tima

This implement is one of curious form, and is fairly well known in our museums. Nos. 398, 495 and 194 in Fig. 37 (p. 93) give a good idea of the form of these tools, which were used as grubbers for loosening soil. They were made from a forked branch, the blade being somewhat flattened and the handle round. Their peculiarity lies, not so much in the fact of the peculiar angle of blade and handle, as in the length of the blade which is as long as the handle. In some cases, as witness No. 194, it is somewhat longer; for here the blade part is 1 ft. 9½ in. long, and the handle 1 ft. 6 in. The blade is 2⅛ in. wide and is brought to a serviceable point. In No. 398, blade and handle are about the same length, 1 ft., and No. 495 shows a handle an inch longer than the blade, which is 1 ft 3 in.

The timo could be used effectively only in a squatting position, and was most useful in loosening soil too hard to be worked by a broad bladed tool. This implement closely resembles an old Egyptian form, as depicted in the Rev. R. Taylor's Te Ika a Maui, 2nd Ed., p. 423. In Fig. 38 (p. 93) we see how this timo, or "pecker," was used, albeit the wielder thereof is a young woman of the 20th Century.