Maori Mere pounamu

[kronckew]

for comment:
27.2 cm. nephrite (jade)
est. at 3-40 yrs old. (how can you tell?)

[kronckew]

it arrived. 27 cm, 577 grams. nice 'n heavy.

(in-hand photo for size ref.)

[kahnjar1]

Nice piece. Unless you got some provenance with it, age could be really hard to establish. The jade/greenstone is quite light in colour compared with others I have seen.
This link to Wiki might be of interest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patu
Stu

[kronckew]

thanks, bought mine from a local (UK) antique dealer in an online auction. only info i had was it was obtained 30-40 years ago. (estate sale?)

the 'in hand' photo (my hand - tho it appears a bit redder in the photo than actual) shows the side with slightly larger 'lighter' areas. vendor did mention they were still being made today.

found a seller in NZ online that sells new ones, at quite a bit more than i paid for one a few inches shorter, they also mentioned that you could get it with a rougher finish 'to make it look older', which is cheating.

mine is very highly polished. there are, however, a small arewa of some shallow ripples, tool marks in the narrowest bit on the sides just before the pommel that were not smoothed out completely that i can just feel with my finger tips and can just make out visually if i look real close.

google images brings up quite a few museum/antique examples, darker (almost black) and lighter. seems to be a fair variation. saw some that were auctioned for 20 times what it cost me. they must have had some strong provenance.

[kahnjar1]

Not sure if your NZ source is right by saying that rougher is older. Museum items are usually/most often highly polished, probably more so than "rough", unless of course the item is unfinished.
Anything for sale from here, apart from stated modern made items, is most unlikely to be old as the local Iwi (tribes) are repatriating their heritage when they can, and laws govern what can be exported anyway.

[kronckew]

one of the advantages of living in the UK is that <s>looters</s>, er... explorers from GB have been bringing artifacts back here for centuries, and they pop up in estate sales at reasonable prices when the relatives sell of the dearly departed's prizes as junk. i am keeping my eyes peeled for a full sized taiaha.

in the last decade or so, the russians, greeks, and chinese are also reclaiming their heritage and driving auction prices up. some do occasionally slip thru their nets.

the flood of 'antique' chinese jade and bronzes (bronze weapons in particular) on e-pray are all new, as china prohibits the export of any real antiques.

i tend to work under the assumption that if i can afford it, it's not a real 'antique'. with luck, i get some 'vintage' items. and some tourist crud. but the occasional gem too.

[kahnjar1]

I agree. Most of the (then) colonial countries had their heritage "stolen". You are more likely to get genuine stuff where you are!.
Good luck with the Taiaha.

[kronckew]

the looting continues...

won this patu on e-pray from a USA Book-seller. the postage is costing me more than the club. 16 in. long x 4 in. at widest. (no lanyard hole, no carving other than the incised rings at the pommel) listed as 'vintage' polynesian, 'possibly maori'. looked 'possibly' enough for me to go for it.

[kronckew]

when it rains, it pours: found this one tonite, it's coming to stay with me. 18" (46cm.) x 6" wide (15cm.) listed as early to mid 20c. symmetrical both sides.

[spiral]

I could be wrong but perhaps the type/ colour of jade used has altered over time?

I have a old south sea islands jade axe , Its very dark green nearly black in some light.

Spiral

[kronckew]

i think it varies more by location the stone is found. the really dark green almost black with gold-ish flecks i hear is most prized. i also have read that the various maori tribes protect their sources. some stones are found on the beaches too.

i would expect that really high quality jade meres would be out of my price range i'm lucky i could afford my one.

[kahnjar1]

Originally Posted by kronckew

i think it varies more by location the stone is found. the really dark green almost black with gold-ish flecks i hear is most prized. i also have read that the various maori tribes protect their sources. some stones are found on the beaches too.

i would expect that really high quality jade meres would be out of my price range i'm lucky i could afford my one.

As I have said before in this thread, the GOOD old examples in Museums here are generally dark green to almost black in colour.
The best greenstone is reputed to come from the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. Indeed the Maori name for the South Island is Te Wai Pounamu.
I agree that the source of the good stuff was kept secret in the past, but today the location is known, BUT one needs a Permit to gather greenstone, and that is jealously guarded. It is still found as large boulders in the rivers of the West Coast.

[kronckew]

Originally Posted by kronckew

... i am keeping my eyes peeled for a full sized taiaha.
...

found it. 145 cm.

[VANDOO]

THERE ARE SEVERAL TYPES OF JADE COMING OUT OF NEW ZEALAND YOU CAN SEE EXAMPLES OF THE TYPES ON EBAY AND ONE SELLER USED TO LIST ALL THE TYPES AND THEIR DESCRIPTIONS. I AM NOT SURE WHAT TO CALL THE JADE USED ON YOUR MERE BUT THERE ARE SOME LIGHT COLORED JADES LIKE IT. MOST OLD MERE AND HEI TIKI ARE OF A DARKER GREEN JADE AND ARE SMOOTH AND POLISHED. THEY WERE MOST CHERISHED AND HANDLED A LOT AND FEEL VERY GOOD AND SMOOTH WITH VERY FEW MARKS FROM THEIR CONSTRUCTION TO BE SEEN OR FELT. THEY ARE WELL FORMED BUT MAY HAVE SOME VARIATIONS IN THICKNESS AND FLATNESS IN DIFFERENT AREAS.
I WOULD GO WITH THE APPROXIMATE AGE GIVEN ON YOUR EXAMPLE DUE TO THE TYPE OF JADE USED AND THE NUMBER OF LINES CARVED ON THE HANDLE.
A PICTURE OF A OLD HEI TIKI MADE OF THE SORT OF JADE USED ON MY OLD EXAMPLE MERE AND ON MOST OLDER MERE. THE JADE IS DARK GREEN WITH LIGHTER PATTERN WITHIN.

[kronckew]

thanks for your help, vanadoo. just went thru the tread on fijian clubs that had a post referring to older maori threads. quite informative.

in fact, it lead me to tim's post here

it looks like i have (post 9 above), not the original, but a darn good copy of the no. 48 in a. hamilton's book. i note a few minor variations in the patterns, on the grip area. and there is more apparent abalone shell inlayed eyes on the main tiki, 3 longitudinal bands, not 4. looked very hard to see any carving errors, border over runs, etc. didn't see any. oddly, the ends of the fibrous lanyard are sewn together along with the bits of feather.

very dark wood (NZ Tawa?). 43 cm. long, 15 cm. wide, 2 cm. thick, 312 gm.
teeny chip in edge shows wood fibres, same dark colour. bearing in mid the statements about plastic copies, i did the hot pin test. it's wood. i wiped it down with an oily rag (BLO) as there were a few dusty areas and it appeared a bit dry. it absorbed all the oil fairly quickly.

p.s. - found this jade manaia (bottom), thought it would hang nicely on the wall with the clubs when i display them.

[kronckew]

plain wood patu from post 8 arrived today. 16" (41cm.) x 4" (10.2cm.) as noted, deep dark brown hard wood (tawa?) with a smooth semigloss oil finish. heavy, 390 grams. quite a sharp striking edge. no lanyard hole (i added the temporary lanyard at the 4th incised pommel ring), no surface dings, no visible edge dings, but you can feel a couple teeny ones. don't think this is a tourista model. feels good & deadly in the hand.

[ausjulius]

Originally Posted by kahnjar1

Nice piece. Unless you got some provenance with it, age could be really hard to establish. The jade/greenstone is quite light in colour compared with others I have seen.
This link to Wiki might be of interest http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patu
Stu

hello you can tell the age of the mere buy a number of factors.
its weight , how sharp the edge is ,
how even the lanyar hole is,
if the lanyar hole is worked smooth inside.
the finish of the tool
the shape of the genetalia inspired pommel and finally the greenstone used.
the old mere were very carefully selected to be a free of fractures as can be . newer ones are just cut from chunks of stone and sold for looks , btu with a fracture one hit and its broken.

really the best way to know if its been around for a while is look in the lanyard hole if its a really good copy they still wont think to polish the inside of the hole.
but if it is hol and has been used the lanyard will poslish the green stone in the hole to a fine gloss. and this ont ware off from rough handling or some nut refinishing it.

as to mere made in the modern era of maori culture 1920s till now.. hard to say.. as really one made yesterday and one made 50 years ago are all tourist items and this age range dosnt really add any extra value.

[ausjulius]

Originally Posted by kronckew

plain wood patu from post 8 arrived today. 16" (41cm.) x 4" (10.2cm.) as noted, deep dark brown hard wood (tawa?) with a smooth semigloss oil finish. heavy, 390 grams. quite a sharp striking edge. no lanyard hole (i added the temporary lanyard at the 4th incised pommel ring), no surface dings, no visible edge dings, but you can feel a couple teeny ones. don't think this is a tourista model. feels good & deadly in the hand.

about your club but
its for a recent made souvenir type of club,
the wood used, the shape, shape of the pommel ect. lack of lanyard hole all indicate very recent product and not of a traditional form.
ive made some clubs like that when i was younger as well.
i made a crude taiaha as well.

[kronckew]

ah, well - didn't pay much for it. still feels like a 'user'. fairly heavy & sharp edges, would definitely hurt and damage someone.

the two 1960's +/- ones feel fairly good too (haven't posted pics of them yet). i've seen some for sale on NZ websites that are cheaper looking and selling for many times what i got those for. also have two that feel really touristy, one (first one i bought) is thin & poorly carved only one side tho it might make a good ping-pong paddle. the other is thicker, much heavier and fairly well carved and inlaid, but is only 12" long and has the initials TV on the grip. the intricately carved one billed as early 20c looks just like the one in the old book, though the patterns are slightly different. it's sharper too.

the lanyard hole in the jade one is flared without a sharp edge, not as polished as the rest but somewhat polished. no tool marks, the inner part of the hole is not shiny but not fresh cut either. can't see any tool marks. i'm not gonna bang it against anything hard to see if it cracks. i've thumped it into my hand - that hurts.

sadly, i cannot afford the older 'real' antique ones i've seen in teeny pictures on antique dealers sites listed at ten times my most expensive one so far. you get what you pay for, but a good recent one is better than nothing. in the end, i will not be using them for their old pre contact, pre political correctness, purposes, just like the steel edged weapons i have of assorted ages. they are for dreaming. the age that these weapons evolved for is long gone and exists only in our minds and the history books.

the 'vintage' 16" tourist wahaika ones: top 2.
the small 12" wahaika TV
the thin 'modern' kotiate:

[ausjulius]

yeah the real deal is very pricy.
my father owned several antique patu, mere and other maori weapons ... he purchase them in the 1960s during a time when collectors didnt value them as much and many Maoris considered them items of an "uncivilized" past unless they were specifically important to their own family.

back then quality ones could be found in antique shops all over the country... sadly he sold them all many years ago.

yeah the club you go looks like a modern made patu somebody was making after seeing the original and then deciding they wanted a weapon like it. i remember meeting a maori guy in a pub once who had a homemade patu with the grip wrapped in electrical tape stuck in the back of his shorts..
seems like that sort of item not a tourist item but not old more like a weapon somebody has made.

mostly the tourist ones will have the correct pommel shape and grip dimensions and be of rather soft stained wood ..

the green stone mere looks very recent. 35 or so years.

greenstone is rather soft and as it is used over time it wll take a very glossy smooth finish lanyar hole will become very smooth if they are originals that have been used with their lanyard as historically these were always used with their lanyard. nothign like dropping your stone club and seeing it broken on the ground if the thing cost you 10 slaves youd be mighty pissed

[kronckew]

interesting. nice to correspond with someone with a NZ connection.

the plain club with the 4 ring pommel was described as 'polynesian' and they added 'thought to be of a maori design'. again, 'vintage'. the best one seems to be the highly carved 18" one in my post 15.

[ausjulius]

thanks i was born in northland near dargaville in n.z.
when we were kids wed play games like maoris and rangers hahaha ive never heard of other n.z. kids playing such a game it was always cowboys and indians or cops and robbers ect at my cousins place.. when wed play we'd have some rhymes like -
"im the ghost of hongi heke one more step and ill bite your teke" teke implying something phallic , then make some crazy war dance.
use flax flower stems and muskets and taiaha ..

wed use the wooden play equipment at school or a tree house as a pa (fortress) guys who captured by the maoris got eaten haha

it always interested me as to why the maori didnt have bows while most of Polynesia did.
my father had some place very small stone tips like arrow heads from the south island, but they were presumed to be whipping dart heads. long darts throw with a line or cord.
although im not sure they were awfully small.

the mere were close combat and dueling weapons. used like a meat cleaver or a dagger almost. lots of jabs to the face and neck.
in pictures the maori always have them out in hand and in paintings they are show stuck in the belt, but i find this hard to believe they were very valuable and fragile i sounder how they were carried when in use as the maori warrior would carry many weapons . adze, several clubs, axe, spear , taiaha ect.. when you see videos of melinesians i tribal fights they seem to stick all the weapons down the back of their laplap or loincloth wrapping but moris i just can imagine doing this with something valuable. .

in the past maori used long lances 15-20 feet long or more and javalins as their main weapons in massed combat, good for defending and attacking pa fortifications..
but most of these things became obsolescent before europeans arrived . as soon as one guy got a gun ... boom.. i believe that maori warfare became very ritualized with rules and rituals some decades prior to the arrival of europeans, things were getting very tribalism big tribes splitting into smaller and smaller ones each chief having a fortified village, instead of big confederations or kingdoms like hawaii, tonga or fiji... and so these types of weapons became more and more... unsporting.. and the close in dueling weapons and the fighting styles that go with them became more common. if you had a chief in the other village who you hated youd want to beat him in personal combat for everyone to see not see him stuck with a dart form some commoner..

that why the long maori weapons are so very rare today, while the short weapons are rather common..

[VANDOO]

YOUR THEORY MAKES SENSE AS MOST OF THESE TRIBES SPLIT OFF AND WERE RELATED SO THOUGH THERE WERE DISAGREEMENTS AND FEUDS WITHIN THE FAMILY THEY DIDN'T WANT TO ACTUALLY EXTERMINATE THE OTHER TRIBES. THEY JUST WANTED TO SHOW SUPERIORITY OF PERSONS OR TRIBES. SO RULES, TABOOS AND TRADITIONS WERE SET UP SO HONOR COULD BE GAINED BY THE AMBITIOUS AND FACE COULD BE SAVED AND ORDER PRESERVED.
AND OF COURSE THE OCCASIONAL DINNER COULD BE SERVED

JADE IS ONE OF THE TOUGHEST STONES THERE IS AND NOT AS EASILY DAMAGED AS MOST OTHER STONE. THAT IS WHY IT HAS BEEN USED IN TOOLS AND WEAPONS THE WORLD OVER THRU HISTORY. IT IS OFTEN THE MOST VALUED IN MANY SOCIETY'S FOR THIS STRENGTH AS WELL AS ITS BEAUTY AND THE FEEL OF THE WELL POLISHED STONE. I AM SURE THE MERE WAS WELL LOOKED AFTER BY THOSE FEW WHO COULD OBTAIN ONE EITHER THRU WEALTH, RANK AND PRESTIGE OR IN BATTLE. HOW IT WAS SECURED IN BATTLE IF USING A LONGER WEAPON INITIALLY I DON'T KNOW BUT I AM SURE IT WAS KEPT SECURE AND PROTECTED FOR WHEN IT WAS NEEDED. IF A WARRIOR WAS FUMBLING ABOUT FOR HIS MERE OR DROPPED IT HE WAS LIKELY BOUND FOR AN EARLY MEETING WITH THE COOKING POT.

[ausjulius]

yes so true. i really have never seen a good depection on how the mere were carried. other than stuck in the waist band. i would suspect there must have been a special flax pouch or basket for it. but all the collections ive seen any such item is absent. no maoris knowledgeable in the topic of maori weapons that ive spoken to had a really good answer either.
big problem is that photographers and artists from the 19th century liked people to unnaturally pose with weapons so it makes it hard.


yes the personal duels were a very big think in maori warfare in the 18th and early 19th centuary. but once guns got common place some poor low cast fello with a musket could kill with one shot from 100 meters even the most prestigious chiefly warrior,
sent the whole system into chaos, as you could not really avenge the death specifically with a challenge and you didnt know who killed who,
suddenly personal martial prowess was of much less importance compared to equipment and tactics..

with the guns , in n.z. you find many nicely carved muskets and breach-loaders and the odd pistol too all carved up nicely on the stocks.
but none ever attracted any prestige to them like a club or axe or taiaha because they killed from a distance and without connection to the victim..
where as some famous mere people know who was killed with it on what date where ect ect and who captures it from who when.

[kronckew]

oops - i just noticed that my first post said 'est. 3-40 years'.

that should have read '30-40' not that it matters much. probably was more accurate that way

post office's 'parcel force' notified me that my taiaha arrives tomorrow! after charging me a small fortune in VAT, duty, and a customs handling fee...
ive bought clubs in the UK for less

(p.s.-ausjulius, i've sent you a PM.)

[kronckew]

taiaha arrived. 1.45 meters of kiln dried Kauri wood.carved both sides, 4 abalone 'eyes' on spear end carving. feathers attached by a red string winding. 490 grams.from Kakahu Taonga Aotearoa

[kronckew]

just acquired a 'vintage' (mid 20th c.?) taiaha. this one is 2.5 in. longer than the one just above. also 60% heavier (949 gm) than the other's 600 gm. plain blade, fibre skirt rather than feathers, marks on blade from parry impacts, end have some wear from abrasion. blade end is sharper on this one, rather than squared off & flat like the other. couple of old worm holes. this appears to be more of a useable one than a display one. should arrive in a few days.

also found a patu that i bought solely for the wood, it's apparently nz purirri wood, a very dense & heavier than water wood. looks beautiful. probably not very old, but whattheheck. no lanyard, but looks like some wear at the lanyard hole. age & size not listed by vendor. ?.

[kronckew]

tiaha & patu have arrived. the taiaha is a nice heavy hard wood, surprisingly weighty compared to the other slightly shorter taiaha which is a NZ evergreen wood. this one just reaches the bottom of my chin, which i understand is about the right length for me.
oiled finish, not lacquered. 1 old wormhole that goes all the way thru & a couple shallow holes about 2mm deep. a number of dents from parrying as noted earlier. ill give it a few drinks of boiled linseed (flax) oil.

the newish patu has a clear urethane coating (would have preferred an oil finish), nice grain, couple shrinkage cracks near what look like knots in the wood that do not go all the way thru.. coating doesn't go all the way thru the lanyard hole which is fairly roughly bored. very sharp edges on the 'blade', 245 gm. 12" x 4" x 3/4". gave it a braided leather lanyard as a present. this one is not plastic.

[fireiceviper]

kronckew i have a taiaha similar to yours , i also believe it is 20th century ( i cant say early mid or late)

Everything i have seen posted here to me looks mid to late 20th century or even newer...

A good resource is the tepapa museum archive located here :
for taiaha:
http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/se...iaha&scope=all
for mere:
http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/se...magesOnly=true

Another recent mere i esquired about can be found here
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/...b-patu-pounamu
This one to me actually doesn't look that bad, but its definitely a tourist or recent made piece, the size gives most of them away... oh and ignore the possible 19th century ... its not but the price was ok in my opinion.

I've included some pictures of my taiaha (156 cm)

[kronckew]

mine was listed as 'mid 20th c.

the evergreen one i know is recent (21st c.) and probably this year's model.

19c & earlier stuff if real goes for more than i can afford. vintage, not so bad.