red into competition with the older one and had surpassed it in quantity if not in quality.
On general grounds it seems likely that the first Polynesians to explore New Zealand would discover greenstone, quantities of which must then have lain on western beaches and along the banks of the rivers and streams which traverse serpentine deposits. One of the principal objects of the Polynesian explorers would be to discover new and attractive materials for implements, weapons, and ornaments. It is therefore likely that the first maritime explorers of the South Island took back to their base specimens of pounamu. The pieces of greenstone that have occasionally been found in Polynesia probably crossed the sea in the period of exploration which included the discovery of New Zealand.* That greenstone was known to the earliest inhabitants of Otago, the moa-hunters, was demonstrated by Chapman and Hamilton (1892). Greenstone has since been found in moa-hunter beds by Teviotdale (1932). The culture of the moa-hunters has been shown to be characteristically Polynesian, and of that branch of Polynesian culture associated with the Society Islands (Skinner, 1923, p. 23; Teviotdale, 1932).
There is evidence that the Morioris of the Chatham Islands, who may be regarded as descendants of a section of the earliest inhabitants of New Zealand, were also acquainted with greenstone. The culture of the Morioris has been shown to be Marginal (or Tahitian) Polynesian. (Skinner, 1924, p. 335.)
D. Circulation of Greenstone Among the Maoris.
The word “circulation” is here used to indicate the process whereby greenstone passed from its source into the possession of tribes more and more distant from Otago and Westland until
[Footnote] * J.P.S., 1902, p. 263; 1933, p. 225.
pieces reached places as remote as Stewart Island, Chatham Island, and the North Cape. The term “barter” has often been used to designate this process, but Firth (1929, p. 403) has shown clearly that the term is inappropriate.
Stories occur in Maori tradition of voyages undertaken by northern tribesmen to secure for themselves supplies of greenstone, and it is not improbable that in early times such voyages were the normal method whereby greenstone was circulated. With the settlement of the northern and eastern coasts of the South Island, journeys afoot must have largely replaced sea-voyages, the greenstone passing indirectly to the north by a process of reciprocal gifts.
The climate of the South Island is more rigorous than that of the North, and of Maori domesticated food-plants only the kumara was grown south of Cook Strait. Its successful cultivation became more and more difficult the further southward settlements were founded, until in South Canterbury it faded out, and in Otago it could not be cultivated at all. Settlement in these districts was not precluded on that account, for, in addition to wild substitutes, taro, kumara, and other northern products were procured by a process of exchange by reciprocal gifts. Of all southern products it seems likely that preserved moa-flesh was the first to be used in securing northern produce. After the extermination of the moa it is probable that the flesh of mutton-birds took the place of moa-flesh. Later still a trade was developed in Otago greenstone from the Wakatipu district. The Maoris state that this greenstone was of the inanga kind. The term inanga is primarily applied to whitebait, and is used in metaphor of light-coloured greenstone. Whether inanga greenstone was found on the Arahura-Teremakau field has not yet been determined in this research. It is probable also that greenstone of darker shades was found occasionally in the Otago field. But an examination of the greenstone in the Otago University Museum demonstrates that, in that district, pieces having light shades decisively outnumber dark ones. Further, of the pieces of dark greenstone found on Maori sites in Otago it is probable that some at least are derived from the Westland field.
Greenstone from the field at the head of Lake Wakatipu was carried to settlements on the s