Earliest examples
Due to the perishable nature of wood and the difficulty of preserving it, few wooden carvings from the earliest period of Māori society have survived. However, stone amulets and necklace reels made in this era from moa or whale bone, stone, or whale ivory are very close in appearance to similar objects found in eastern Polynesia. There are also masterly carved adzes that are close in form to the ceremonial adzes of Rarotonga and the Austral Islands.
Transitional styles
In this transitional phase some objects carved by Māori began to reflect their adaptation to their new home, while others still strongly approximated those found in other eastern Polynesian cultures. This may indicate that two-way voyaging between New Zealand and Polynesian islands occurred during this period, and that new waves of migrants were still arriving.
Kaitāia ‘lintel’
An ancient found near Kaitāia in 1920 was once thought to be a pare (lintel), but is more likely to be a roof decoration. It has a central figure and decorative notching very close in appearance to a carving from the Austral Islands. The dog form of south-east Polynesian sculpture has been given a manaia-like (beaked) head. This simplified manaia and the composition, with a central figure flanked by the two manaia, foreshadow pare of the post-1500 period.
Uenuku
Uenuku, an early carving of special significance to Tainui tribes, is often compared with Hawaiian carvings of the god Kū, with its emphasis on form and lack of surface decoration. It was possibly a copy of a talisman or mauri (a material emblem embodying the life principle) that came from Hawaiki on the Tainui canoe.
Two canoe prows
Two further examples from this period demonstrate a change in their makers’ response to the flora and fauna of Aotearoa. A 15th-century haumi (canoe prow) from Taranaki has regular rows of decorative notching in keeping with the carving of other Polynesian islands. However, some of the rows have been curved to form spirals, early versions of the takarangi or rauru spirals that characterise later classical whakairo. Another haumi, from Doubtless Bay in Tai Tokerau, features a beaked head form that is a bold and sculptural forerunner of the manaia profiles that would emerge in later Māori art.
