The Tauihu or Figurehead

The form of the tauihu, or figurehead of the Maori canoe, in its different designs, is shown in the illustrations given. This item, often highly ornate, has flat edges at the bottom, and a square rear end on each side to butt against the square forward ends of the two

Photo, Dominion Museum Collection

top-strakes of the canoe. The tauihu is secured to both the top-strakes and to the two sides of the hull of the canoe underneath by the usual method of lashings, passed through holes bored through the various timbers. Thus the figurehead (also the stern-piece) rests on the hull, is butted against the two rauawa, or top-strakes, and is tightly lashed to all. The battens that cover the join of the rauawa and hull, inside and out, are continued to cover the join of the tauihu and the hull, even to the extremity of the latter. The joins are page 143

Sketch by Miss E. Richardson

covered with pads of raupo, termed tupa. There is no open space between the figurehead and the hull at any part; the fittings of the canoe in the Dominion Museum do not belong to it, and are no criterion. The making of one of the elaborate figureheads was the labour of years, but such work was always done in an intermittent manner, and was sometimes finished by the next generation.

A canoe that has no tauihu, and either no stern-piece or only a very common, plain one, is described as a tuki on the east coast, and such a craft may or may not have a haumi and rauawa. In such a canoe the figurehead is replaced by a plain piece of wood, pointed or square cut at the forward end. Again, any canoe fitted with a

Sketch by Miss E. Richardson

haumi is described as a waka haumi, and a canoe hewn from one log, with no haumi, is called a kotore-puni. These are merely descriptive names, explaining structural peculiarities.

The long wands projecting forward from the figurehead are known as ihiihi and hihi, and are usually slim rods of manuka or tanekaha wood. (See fig. 56.) The long feather ornaments are known as pahi. Small bunches of feathers were also tied on the rods at intervals. These projecting rods form a singular feature in prowornamentation,

Sketch by Miss E. Richardson, from Ellis's "Polynesian Researches."

and one can but wonder what was the origin of such an object. The device bears a curious resemblance to one illustrated in Ellis's Polynesian Researches (2nd ed., vol. 1, p. 148). (See fig. 57.) Here we see a long rod with two curved prongs projecting from the prow of a fishing-canoe. At the extremities of the prongs are bunches of feathers, and to them also were secured fishing-lines. This was a mode of taking such fish as bonito.

The tauihu are painted with red ochre mixed with oil, as also the stern-piece. The two different forms of tauihu are shown in the illustrations.

The figurehead of the waka tana class of canoe is a highly ornate object, and one of the finest examples of Maori wood-carving, as will be seen by referring to the illustrations given. Brown, in his work on New Zealand, writes as follows: "Figureheads may sometimes be seen with a great deal of carving on them, but, after all, it is rudely executed, and is remarkable chiefly for its regularity, and the vast amount of time and patience which must have been expended on it. These specimens of art seem to be copies of each other, which shows the poverty of their inventive genius. They take great care of these figureheads, so that they are frequently fitted to new canoes after the original ones have been destroyed—another evidence of the difficulty of producing them."

These remarks are scarcely just. A well-finished figurehead was by no means rudely executed. The similarity noticed was not the result of "the poverty of their inventive genius," but of the conventional aspect to which all decorative art had attained prior to the advent of Europeans.

Photo, Dominion Museum Collection
Fig. 58 Tauihu, or Prow Attachment of War-canoe.

In speaking of the ideality of the Maori of olden times Mr. Colenso remarks: "That faculty was exhibited in many ways—e.g., in the building of their war-canoes, with all their carving and many adornments—and that without plan, pattern, or tools. The exquisite regularity and symmetry of both sides of the vessel, including even that difficult one of carved concentric circles worked in filagree, were astonishing; and, as such, borne ample testimony to by all their first visitors… For the carved figureheads of their canoes the pukatea was generally used, while the ornamented carved work of the sterns was made of matai or totara."

Of the carving of the stem and stern pieces Mr. Barstow says: "Only a small portion of the tracery must be cut out at a time, lest exposure to the sun should cause a crack. A fully ornamented stern-post was months, or years even, before it received its finishing-touch, though the pattern had been sketched from the first." This writer also remarks as follows on the custom of preserving carefully these valued carvings and transferring them to new canoes: "Sometimes, though the hull might be new, the carved portions of worn-out canoes would be reused, being renovated for the occasion; formerly the stem and stern pieces were detached and stored in sheds when a war-canoe was laid up in ordinary."

There are two different types of figureheads as used for the decoration of the superior type of Maori canoes. The most common is that shown in figs. 54, 55, 58, 59, 61, and 63; the other type is shown in figs. 60 and 62.

The first type is the true pitau form. Concerning these, the two most prominent features are the two large scroll designs, and the page 146

Photos. Dominion Museum Collection

grotesque projecting figure with protruding tongue and arms extended backwards. The detail work between the scrolls, and in other parts, is not precisely the same in all specimens, but the two leading features and the general form remain much the same.

In the other type of figurehead we have a different design. The projecting grotesque figure disappears, and the two large scrolls are replaced by a number of small ones or altogether disappear. In some cases curious compound scroll designs appear; also the reverse scroll, approximating the letter S in form; also a more page 147involved form resembling two such sets of reverse curves conjoined so as to coalesce. Professor Haddon, in his Evolution in Art, shows this reverse scroll on Pueblo pottery, and in Aegean art; also a design from the Necropolis of Thebes resembling the involved scroll design mentioned above. Another interesting feature in some figureheads of this type is the form imported to the strengthening-ribs that give stability to the design and counteract the weakening effect of the filagree or pierced work. In some cases these ribs are of snake-like form and terminate in grotesque heads. The various illustrations and remarks thereon will draw attention to other peculiarities and details of these carved forms.

In some canoes a figure or head, grotesquely human, was carved on the underneath surface of the prow of a canoe—that is, on the

Sketches by Miss E. Richardson

page 148

Photos, Dominion Museum Collection

prow of the dugout hull. This is seen on the "Mata-o-Turoa" canoe at Whanganui. Williams gives us three names for this figure viz., par at a, toiere, and koneke. Here, apparently, we see the origin of the term waka toiere, a canoe possessing this carving. Colenso's remark concerning the parata seems to refer to the prow of the dug-out, not to the image carved on it: "Parata is also the name of that part of a war-canoe that projects out at the bow, beneath the image or figurehead, and meets the rising waves; near this was the coveted seat or stand of the hero or warrior chief." But a chief occupied a position at the stern of a canoe, not at the prow. Among the Tuhoe page 149Tribe the carved head (only) placed on the gable of a house is called the parata, while a figure representing the whole human body so placed is called a tekoteko.

Photo, Dominion Museum Collection

The plain type of figurehead affixed to second-class canoes is termed a tete (both vowels being long); the elaborately carved type we are now describing being known as a tauihu; while pitau describes the form in which scrolls appear.

It will be observed that the rear end of the figurehead is much reduced in height, and thus accommodates itself to the height or depth of the fore end of the top-strake, to which it is attached by lashings when in position. In the series of illustrations published with the account of the voyage of the "Astrolabe" we note a different form, in which the projection piece at the rear end is lacking, the high rear end of the figurehead butting against the forward end of the top-strake, above which it projects considerably. Not only so, but it also projects above a fore wash-strake, placed on the top page 150of the full-length top-strake, or rauawa, and which extends nearly a quarter of the length of the canoe. To both of these strakes the figurehead is lashed, the join between the two strakes being covered with battens secured by lashings in the manner already described. It may be observed that all battens were rounded as to their outer sides in order to facilitate the tightening of the lashings. This fore wash-strake was not, apparently, universally used on waka taua: it seems to have been termed the pairi. Williams's Dictionary also gives huhunu as a name for temporary wash-boards at the bow of a canoe.

A. Hamilton, photo

In the Auckland Museum is part of a canoe-prow showing in its interior hollow parts a fine example of chipping with stone adzes.

A study of the carved canoe-prows of the New Guinea and Indo-nesian areas would probably show a resemblance between some western forms and those of New Zealand. A striking form of the former area is depicted at page 50 of Hornell's Outrigger Canoes of Indonesia.