Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0202
Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 202]
198.
Some account of New Zealand
the ends of them in so dextrous a manner that it was next to impossible for the eye to trace their connections for the other I shall say nothing but referr intirely to the few drawings which I had an opportunity of getting made of them premising however that the beauty of all their carvings depended intirely on the design for the execution was so rough that when you came near it was difficult to find any beaties in the things which struck you most at a distance
after having said so much of their workmanship it will be nescessary to say something of their tools. as they have no metal among them these are made of Stone of different kinds their hatchets especialy of any hard stone they can get but especialy cheifly of a kind of Green Talk which is very hard & at the same time tough with axes of this stone they cut so clean that it would often puzzle a man to say if they were wood they have shapd was or was not cut with an Iron hatchet these axes they value above all their riches & would seldom part with them for any thing we could offer but their nicer work which requires nicer edge tools they do with fragments of Jasper which they break & use the edges of it that are sharp like flints till they are blunt