Domestic sketches. [image of page 133]
plate lix. Domestic economy: women making mats, &c. 1. A sketch at kaitote, on the waikato, showing a cooking-house, with a couple of old women performing the ceremony of ongi, or pressing noses. 2. An aged woman of te mutu, making a basket of the leaves of the tawara (freycinetia banksii). 3. A slave woman, preparing potatoes by scraping them with a mussel shell. The potato forms the principal article of food amongst the new zealanders, and much of their time is employed in its cultivation. 4. Interior of a house at rangihaeata's pah at porirua, with women engaged in manufacturing flax garments. The pole in the foreground, with a carved image beneath, supports the ridge-pole of the building. 5. Tangi, or crying of welcome. When friends meet, they cry together for some time: then succeeds the ongi, or pressing noses, as shown in figure 6. Both these sketches are from life, and were made near taupiri, on the waikato river. Date: 1847.
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