Two Richmond scout Venturers, removing stones for the bivvy they were setting up on a weekend camp, discovered a Māori tool that may have lain there for hundreds of years.
Lucas Sinclair, 15, and Caleb Gordon, 14, found the patu muka on the edge of an estuary at Whangarae Bay in the Marlborough Sounds and knew their find was significant.
The pair had built their bivvy using a fly from a tent, fishing line and wooden pallets they had found, then began moving stones around it to create a smoother area when they stumbled on a stone shaped like a grinding pestle.
“It caught my eye because it was so smooth,” Caleb says. “We were on Māori land, so knew it was possibly a Māori artefact.”
The group brought it back to Richmond and their Venturer leader, Katie Mincher, took it to the Nelson Provincial Museum’s research facility at Isel Park where it was identified as a patu maku that is probably between 200 and 600 years old.
A patu maku, she explains, was a tool used by pre-European Māori to pound fibre such as harakeke (flax) so that it could then be used to weave into fabric or other uses.
At 2.7kg, the solid stone carved into the shape of a pestle has the weight to pound fibres such as harakeke which likely grew in abundance around the estuary, she says.
“It was used to soften the flax fibre to make softer woven fabrics, or any woven material. If you wanted your fibre nice and soft, you had to bash it around a bit. The benefit of the shape is you can roll the fibre as well as grind it.”
The tool, which is thought to be made from greywacke, could also be used to grind fibre extracted from cabbage trees ( tī kōuka), she says.
The group of eight Venturers from Richmond Scout Group and their two leaders have officially handed the patu muka to the museum, with a contract drawn up for the entire group to sign.
As part of the handover, the museum made a presentation to the group about the artefact and the history of the area where it was discovered.
The museum’s kaitiaki taonga Māori (guardian) Hamuera Manihera says the patu muka possibly belonged to Ngāti Tūmatakōkiri iwi which settled in the northwest of the South Island around 1600.
“Locally it is an important find as it adds another piece of the history of our ancestors living there. It shows they were using flax there and making textiles.
“It is a local stone and carved by local people, so it is a real treasure.”
The patu muka will be a taonga tūturu (protected object) with the museum and he says it will eventually be given to the iwi that proves its association with the land where it was found.
For Caleb and Lucas, it was a “pretty cool” find and the chances of stumbling upon it was slim since it just looked like “a rock in a riverbed” until it was lifted.
“I wasn’t really expecting to see anything too interesting in the artefacts sense. So, it’s kind of cool to find something like that,” Caleb says.
