Leach, B.F. 2007. A cache of fishhooks from Serendipity Cave, Jackson Bay, New Zealand. pp 79–95....

A cache of fishhooks from Serendipity Cave, Jackson Bay, New Zealand

Foss Leach

5Introduction A modern fisherman, whether going to sea or walking to a rocky

point for a day’s fishing, will take with him a collection of fishhooks, the diversity of which has its own story to tell about his intentions, expectations and skill. The same was true in the past, but sorting out how those qualities shaped the fishing kit is much more difficult when the fisherman can no longer be observed and questioned. We face the common archaeological problem of equifinality, where an observation may bear several plausible but different explanations. For example, a narrow range of hooks could suggest targeted fishing behaviour with expectation of a high rate of success, whereas a wide range of hook types might suggest uncertainty about which species of fish were likely to be available. Alternatively, the relative diversity of gear might have been chosen deliberately to suit well-known, but different, fishing environments, including one with a wide range of taxa. Then again, the main factor of choice might have been skill. Novice fishermen, in their uncertainty, generally take a wider range of gear than an experienced fisherman. Nevertheless, some archaeological observations are readily amenable to ethnographic analogy. Different forms of fishing gear were made to target particular types of fish, such as lures for pelagic predators and bait hooks for bottom feeders, and these are often readily distinguished in archaeological collections. Different hook sizes also reflect targeting behaviour, although it is possible to catch large fish on small hooks.

Many archaeologists have tried to interpret ancient fishing behaviour from hook shape and size. In my view, only very general interpretations are able to be made from such data, and even when large quantities of fish bones are closely associated with hooks in the same archaeological site, matching hooks to fish is not always clear (Davidson and Leach 1996). A large part of the problem is that most sites, especially large middens, represent numerous events that are almost impossible to separate. If we want to understand better the behaviour of prehistoric fishing, including the manufacture and choice of gear in its context of fishing locality and catch, then it is necessary to find evidence of very short-term or single events. It is one of these cases that is described here.

During a ‘Science Survey’ in June 1965, a group of university students discovered a limestone cave about 2 km to the northwest of the settlement at Jackson Bay, Westland (Figure 5.1). A number of bone

Serendipity Cave

80 Vastly Ingenious

fishhooks and other artefacts were discovered on the surface of the cave floor near the entrance. These were carefully plotted on sketch maps, collected up, and donated to the Otago Museum. A short note about the collection appeared later that year in Science Record (Lyon 1965). In July the same year I visited the site with Les Groube and carefully searched the whole cave, collecting all remaining artefacts, and carrying out a small excavation of some midden at the entrance. The weather conditions during this fieldwork were extreme, with deep snow on higher elevations and ice and sleet at sea level. Consequently, the field research was cut short, and to my knowledge the cave has not been revisited by archaeologists. The fishhook collection is quite well known, as it was on display at the Otago Museum for many years; however, apart from Lyon’s short description (1965) and some comments by Hjarno (1967: 12) and Anderson (1981), nothing has been published about the collection and its circumstances, something which I should like to rectify.1

The cave is one of several in this area, but it was probably the only one occupied by pre-European Maori as it is relatively dry at the entrance. It is located on the seaward slope of Mt Eleanor, about 400 m from Smoothwater Bay. This is a pleasant protected cove with excellent fishing and shellfish resources.

Smoothwater Point, nearby, is a localised limestone outcrop about 1 km in length, separated from a similar formation on Jackson Head. The general area is characterised by siltstone, sandstone, and grit

Figure 5.1 The location of the Serendipity Cave. Based on NZMS1 Map S97 and information in the site record form for S97/2.

Leach: A cache of fishhooks from Serendipity Cave 81

conglomerate. The cave was formed by water action in the limestone, and has fairly smooth walls going back into the hillside about 170 m. Only the area immediately inside the cave entrance is suitable for habitation, the remainder being narrow shafts in the limestone. A stream flows in the cave about 75 m from the entrance, and while this may have formed the cave front initially, it now flows out by another exit. Glow-worms occur in the cave and there are some impressive stalagmite and stalactite formations in a cavern towards the rear (Figure 5.2). A few moa bones were found scattered throughout the cave passages. They have no obvious association with the artefacts, and may be much older, perhaps deriving from individuals that were trapped in the cave, or simply died there.

The name ‘Serendipity Cave’ was given by the students who discovered it. The site was published under that name (Lyon 1965), and there was no Lands and Survey map of the area published at that time. The first edition NZMS1 map S97 was published in 1975. A cave is marked on this map at the approximate location of the site and named ‘Anataonga Cave’ (meaning the Cave Treasure Cave). I wrote to the Geographical Board of Lands and Survey when the map

Figure 5.2 Map of the main features of Serendipity Cave. Based on information in the site record form for S97/2. Note the position of moa bones #56 and #57.

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was published and pointed out that the cave was unknown until the students found it, and that they had already published a name for it. The Board declined to change the map name, but in deference to the discoverers, I prefer the original name.

Immediately inside the entrance of the cave is a small flat area that offers protection from bad weather. On the western side there is clear evidence of a roof collapse, and large angular slabs of limestone now block what were once additional entrances to the cave (Figure 5.3). These slabs appear to post-date a small layer of occupational debris in the flat area. This layer has a scatter of fish bones, shells, and charcoal on its surface, and all the artefacts were recovered from scattered locations over the area, without any need for excavation (Figure 5.4). Their positions when collected are shown in Figure 5.5, and a summary checklist is given in Table 5.1. In view of the close similarity of the artefacts to each other, and their surface location, I believe that they form a single ‘fisherman’s kit’, which had been placed on a shelf above the sloping ground to the west. When the container (perhaps a flax kit) rotted away, the durable artefacts rolled down the slope, to remain scattered over a limited surface area. The ‘fisherman’s kit’ interpretation is consistent with the clustered, down-slope, distribution. Why the owner failed to return to the cave to recover his kit is a matter for conjecture; perhaps the collapse of the roof provides a clue, and the owner is under several tons of limestone rubble.

Figure 5.3 The flat area to the west of the main entrance of the cave. Large blocks of rock are from a roof collapse and this blocks another entrance. Note the shaft on the left of the range pole. Photo by G. Lyon.

Figure 5.4 Closer view of the shaft shown in Figure 5.3. Artefacts and bones are scattered over the surface amongst rubble. Photo by G. Lyon.

Figure 5.5 The location of the artefacts and other items numbered 1 to 55 in the Serendipity Cave. The bulk of the items are located on the western side, close to the shaft mentioned in Figures 5.5 and 5.6. Based on notes by G. Lyon and

personal observation.


45 Fishhook (#1197) Catalogue has a second one 45b (#1202)

46 Fishhook (#1192)47 Gouge, greenstone (#1203)48 Fishhooks (2) (#1190, 1191)49 Fragments left and right mandible

dog Canis familiaris50 Fishhook (#1189)51 Adze greenstone smaller one

(#1204)52 Dog tooth (#1207)53 Fishhook (#1184)54 Fishhook (#1185)55 Fishhook (#1186), Teeth (3) dog

Canis familiaris (#1187), one fits jaw 39)

56 Femur Megalapteryx didinus, from ‘Cathedral cave’

57 Femur Anomalopteryx didiformis, from lower cave

Additional items not plotted on Figure 5.5

58 Paua (#1212)59 Lunella smaragda (#1214)60 Lunella smaragda (#1215)61 Lunella smaragda (#1216)62 Fishhook 1, Oruarangi type

(#1221)63 Fishhook 2, notched barracouta

type (#1222)64 Fishhook 3, dog jaw barracouta

type (#1223)65 Fishhook 4, notched barracouta








type (#1231)73 Wooden shank for barracouta

lure, very degraded74 Wooden shank, ? part of

composite hook75 Wooden shaft, raw material for

barracouta lure76 section of left tibia, Homo sapiens

(D81.3794)

Table 5.1 The Serendipity Cave Collection

The first number is the number on Figures 5.5 and 5.6, and the second number refers to the Otago Museum Catalogue number in the series D65-1172 to 1231. Thus, Item 1, #1220 is D65-1220. Some items were registered in 1981, for example D81.3791, and are listed separately.

1 Vertebrae fish, tibiotarsus small bird

2 Lunella smaragda (#1220) 3 Lunella smaragda (#1219) 4 Haliotis australis (#1218) 5 Lunella smaragda (#1210) 6 Lunella smaragda 7 Lunella smaragda 8 Lunella smaragda (3) 9 Lunella smaragda (2)10 Haliotis australis (#1213)11 Fishhooks (2) (#1200, 1201)12 Haliotis australis13 Lunella smaragda, fish bones,

charcoal (#1217)14 Left mandible dog Canis familiaris15 Fishhook (#1199)16 Occipital Homo sapiens

(D81.3792)17 Fishhook (#1198)18 Parietal Homo sapiens (D81.3791)19 Squamosal Homo sapiens

(D81.3793)20 Left mandible dog Canis familiaris,

paired with 39 (centre of photo) 21 Dog tooth (#1206)22 Fishhook (No Museum catalogue

number)23 Paphies subtriangulata (#1211)24 Two Fishhooks (#1181, 1182)25 Fishhook (#1180 centre of photo) 26 Fishhook (#1183)27 Fishhook (#1179)28 Fishhook (#1178)29 Four Fishhooks (#1172, 1173,

1174, 1176), tooth dog Canis familiaris (#1175)

30 Fishhook (#1177)31 Adze greenstone, larger one

(#1205)32 Femur dog Canis familiaris33 Tooth dog Canis familiaris

(#D81.3797)34 Tooth dog Canis familiaris (#1209)35 Wood barracouta lure shank (No

Museum catalogue number)36 Fishhook (#1196)37 Fishhook (#1195)38 Fishhook (#1194)39 Right mandible dog Canis

familiaris, paired with 2040 Right mandible dog Canis

familiaris, paired with 4241 Left mandible dog Canis familiaris42 Left mandible dog Canis familiaris,

paired with 4043 Dog tooth (#1208)44 Fishhook (#1193)

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Figure 5.6 The artefacts from Serendipity Cave. The numbers refer to the location in the cave (Figure 5.5), and are cross referenced to Museum catalogue numbers in Table 5.1. Drawings by Sandra McElrea and Martin Fisher.


The greenstone tools

The midden

Two small adzes and one gouge are present (See Figure 5.6). All have been identified by Russell Beck (pers. comm.) as being of Westland nephrite, from the Arahura River area to the north. One of the gouges is in a pale nephrite, reminiscent of the Dart River source, but this is not thought to be its origin. None of the artefacts shows evidence of heat treatment (Beck 1981). These artefacts were manufactured by a sawing and grinding technique, and in this respect as well as in their forms, they would be considered typical of late prehistoric assemblages throughout New Zealand.

No systematic samples were taken of the midden material, although a small test pit was dug to observe the stratigraphy. Fish bone was fairly common, and amongst the shells the following species were noted: Lunella smaragda, Haliotis iris, Haliotis australis, Paphies subtriangulata. With the exception of the last, all of these foods could have been obtained close by, probably in Smoothwater Bay. The presence of Paphies subtriangulata is unusual for this locality, and they will have been imported from some other place, perhaps in Jackson Bay. It is possible that they were used as scrapers for some purpose, as they show edge damage.

A number of pieces of human bone were in close association with the artefacts, and were clearly part of the ‘fisherman’s kit’. These were a temporal bone, an occipital bone, fragments of both parietal bones, as well as a shaft segment of a lower left tibia. All these pieces probably belonged to the same individual, a robust adult male, and none show signs of pathology. Two of the bones had been worked (see Figure 5.7), and it is most likely that they were raw materials in the fisherman’s kit for making fishhooks. The parietal fragments have been very neatly worked. The rectangular piece is broken along two sides, but scarf-sawn (from one side) along the other two. One of these cuts was made directly along the coronal suture, and the other roughly follows the sagittal suture. The tibial fragment is about 40 mm in length, and had been scarf-sawn at both ends and snapped from the tibial shaft. Following this, two scarfs had been sawn, one along each of the anterior and posterior borders of the bone, preparatory to removal of two rectangular bone tabs. These would have been suitable blanks for making one-piece fishhooks. One of these tabs has a marked curvature and is less suited to making such a hook, but it could have been the raw material for some of the small straight points which feature in this assemblage. Although no sawing tool was found with the assemblage, it is likely to have been a small stone flake suited to task, such as a greywacke spall.

The fact that three of the cuts were still in progress is a fair indication of the length of time involved in manufacturing implements from human bone. It is a strong and durable material, but requires

Human remains

FEATURES OF THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSEMBLAGE

86 Vastly Ingenious

considerable effort to be rendered into finished artefacts. The cuts along the cranial sutures took advantage of lines of natural weakness, showing that this small advantage was considered worthwhile in an otherwise arduous process.

Three pieces of wood were recovered on the cave floor; and all are poorly preserved. One of these pieces (item #73) was the remains of a lure shank, such as is well known in ethnographic collections as a lure for catching barracouta (Thyrsites atun). The item is in such an advanced state of disintegration that it could not be drawn. It had a perforation at the distal end for attachment of a bone point, and the proximal end was scarfed into a slightly raised knob for attachment of the trolling line. The wood was very poorly preserved, and could have been either Dacrydium cupressinum or Podocarpus totara/hallii group (Patel pers. comm.). Both these woods have a low density, and either would be an excellent choice for a lure shank which needs maximum buoyancy to create the surface disturbance so attractive to barracouta.

Worked wood

Figure 5.7 The method of working human bone for artefacts.


A larger trimmed piece of wood (item #75), about 24 x 8 x 9 cm, was more certainly Podocarpus totara/hallii, and is quite likely to have been a slab of the raw material for making lure shanks. Stains were noted on the basal area of a number of the bone points, especially item #72. These probably indicate that, at the time the kit was left in the cave, the points were attached to shanks which have since rotted away. Patches of light brown stain, possibly from wood, were noted in the vicinity of some bone points where they lay on the ground.

It is not known whether green wood or dry seasoned wood was used to make barracouta lure shanks. If the lure was designed to float rather than sink, as is believed, then dry wood would be needed. However, as any bushman knows, cutting dry wood across the grain is likely to damage the cutting edge of an adze or axe. A greenstone adze is far less likely to gap in that circumstance than one made from another type of stone. In addition, the small greenstone chisel would have been ideal for chipping a hole for the bone point in a lure shank of dry wood.

Eight dog mandibles were recovered from the cave (Figure 5.8). There are four individuals represented (four probable pairs of mandibles); all were older than 6–7 months at death. Four mandibles showed a congenital abnormality in the dentition, and as the mandibles may be matched pairs, it is probable that only two of the four dogs were affected. The abnormality is a supernumerary M3 tooth root, indicating either a double-rooted M3, or an accessory single-rooted M4. Allo (1971) found that this is the most common type of abnormality in the Polynesian dog, occurring throughout New Zealand at all periods, but probably more commonly in the South Island. Tooth wear was slight on all individuals, 2.0–3.0 on Allo’s scale.

Polynesian dog mandibles

Figure 5.8 The method of working dog mandibles into fishhooks. Based

on Sisson and Grossman (1953: 190, 195).

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These mandibles were the third main source of raw material for making fishhooks, in particular the barracouta lure points. In Figure 5.8 it is shown how these points were extracted from the mandibles. Both the left and right half of each mandible was capable of yielding two lure points, one from along the lingual border of the transverse ramus, and the other from along the buccal border of the same bone. Only one of this pair of points could possess the distinctive bent elbow on some of the hooks in this assemblage, by taking advantage of the natural gonial angle at the junction of the ascending and transverse ramuses. The bone of the ascending ramus is quite thin and cannot be split in half. Consequently, when the mandible is split in half through the line of the tooth sockets, two unequal-sized shafts of bone are produced. The two small greenstone adzes would be ideal for the purpose of splitting the mandible. Sometimes the mandible would split with the ascending ramus attached to the buccal lamina of bone and sometimes to the lingual lamina.

Close examination of the seven specimens of this type of hook (Figure 5.6 third row from the top) reveals that three specimens (53, 69, 26) are of the lingual type, and the other four are of the buccal type. The difference is easily distinguished with reference to Figure 5.8. The masseteric fossa which contains the body of the masseter muscle has a distinctive notch where the fossa joins the transverse ramus. This is easily observed on four of the hooks in Figure 5.6 (44, 64, 36, 71). In forming a hook from the buccal lamina it would have been necessary to avoid the mental foramina, so this limits the length of the hook that could be obtained from this side of the mandible.

In the lower part of Figure 5.8 the method of extracting a barracouta hook from the lingual lamina is shown. This is by far the commonest hook featuring in Figure 5.6 (19 specimens), but not all are made from dog mandibles. Unfortunately, it is not possible to distinguish human from dog bone reliably. Some in the collection are more certainly human, and others more likely to be dog. It will be observed in the lower part of Figure 5.8 that a longer bone point could be made from the lingual lamina, because there is no nutrient foramina along the lingual surface of the transverse ramus. However, there is a limit at the posterior end of the bone, where the large mandibular foramen is located.

Extracting bone hooks from dog mandibles is well known at many other archaeological sites in New Zealand, especially at the ‘Classic Maori’ site at Oruarangi near Thames (see Fisher 1935: Plate 68). However, the type of hook which resulted was clearly quite different at Oruarangi. There, the point is for a two-piece bait-hook with the bent tip from the ascending ramus, and the main leg from the entire transverse ramus – the opposite technique was employed by the fisherman who owned the assemblage from Serendipity Cave.


There are 26 bone points in the assemblage. These are all clearly identifiable as the point component of a lure for catching barracouta (see Hjarno 1967: 16). They fall naturally into two types – a bent ‘elbow’ form, of which there are seven, and a more numerous uniformly curved form with 19 examples (see Figure 5.6). All of the ‘elbow’ type examples are made from dog mandibles, incorporating part of the ascending ramus (Figure 5.6 third row from the top). The ‘curved’ type examples are made of both dog and human bone (first two rows on Figure 5.6). Exactly what advantage, if any, is achieved by using the ascending ramus in this way is difficult to ascertain. No doubt the hook would be stronger if its curvature followed the natural lamellar structure of the bone, but perfectly satisfactory hooks for the same function were clearly made from the remainder of these mandibles too, and are actually more numerous. It is suggested that the manner of making points from dog jaws was intended to optimise the use of material available, rather than to seek a functional advantage. It should also be noted that the curvatures of one form considerably overlap with the other, and there is probably no functional difference between the two types. Six of the seven ‘elbow’ points are denticulated with scarfed notches along the posterior border, and 16 of the 19 ‘curved’ points are similarly treated. This denticulation is probably only embellishment rather than functional. It would serve no useful purpose in attracting, catching, or retaining barracouta on the hook. Hjarno has argued that there is a definite preponderance of serrated and multi-barbed points in later archaeological sites in Murihiku, a manifestation which has been dubbed ‘baroque’ in New Zealand (Hjarno 1967: 29). Denticulation is a dominant feature of the Serendipity assemblage, and therefore fits well into the baroque category.

All but about four of the 26 barracouta points have a definite protuberance about one quarter to one third of the way up from the base of the point. This would have functioned as a stop to prevent the point from sliding back into the wooden shank when a fish struck. Its presence also suggests that the wooden shanks were all perforated for the point, rather than partially notched. A few of the points have a definite notch at the protuberance, which could have been for lashing the point to the shank, or even for attaching the trolling line to it, in the manner so common in Polynesia. To my knowledge, this form of attachment does not occur in Maori ethnographic collections, and, in view of the high degree of embellishment in this assemblage, this additional notching may not be functional.

Two forms of these can be identified in the assemblage. First, there are three relatively large points (Figure 5.6, items 25, 50, 11b) which are of a common but somewhat diverse form, known from Maori ethnographic collections to have been attached to a large U-shaped wooden shank made from a naturally bent branch of a tree (Hamilton 1908: 37–39). Rare examples are also known with bone shanks (for example, see Hjarno 1967: 58). The point is attached to the shank at

Bone lure points

Composite bait-hook bone points

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a considerable incurved angle, and probably functioned in identical fashion to the incurved point so common in one-piece rotating hooks throughout Eastern Polynesia. This incurved element is very effective in preventing the fish from escaping the hook once it has penetrated the jaw, and it operates a little like a one-way spring catch, such as is used on a dog collar. Iron hooks of this type are now common amongst Japanese tuna fishermen, reviving an extremely effective ancient form. To catch large fish by this hooking principle requires a large strong body to the hook, and an especially strong and sharp tip. This is very effectively made in a composite form, taking advantage of the natural resilience and strength of a wooden branch, combined with a tip made of bone. Other than moa bone, sea mammal ivory and stone, the densest and strongest material available to the pre-European Maori was certainly human bone, which was therefore an ideal choice for manufacturing the points of these large composite hooks. Stone was only rarely used in Polynesia for making hooks, and moa bone was not universally available to pre-European people in New Zealand.

The second type of point, of which there are nine in the Serendipity assemblage (Figure 5.6, fourth row from the top), is a most interesting form. It resembles the famous ‘Oruarangi Point’ (See Fisher, 1935: 294 ff., Shawcross and Terrell 1966: 416 ff., Furey 1996: 88 ff.), a hook form which was long believed to be unique to the Oruarangi site, and therefore a late protohistoric form. It is now known to have been present in New Zealand as early as the thirteenth century A.D. (Davidson 1978: 219, Leach 1979: 103–104). This parallel to the Serendipity hooks deserves careful examination. There are three distinctive features in common, first noted at Oruarangi:

1. The point is part of a composite bait-hook2. The point tip is strongly incurved3. The point has an external/outer barb

The examples at Serendipity cave, however, are different from all examples so far known of the ‘Oruarangi Point’ by being very much shorter. This makes it unlikely that they were attached to a shank in the same fashion as the more common, longer, straighter ‘Oruarangi Point’.

I think that the ‘Oruarangi Point’ acted as a point leg on a modest-sized hook shank, and the two parts were attached at the base of the hook. If this reconstruction is correct, the external barb would serve no functional purpose other than in helping to retain the bait in position. Fisher suggests that these hooks were made from dog mandibles (1935: 295 ff.), as many as four being obtained from the lower jaw of one dog. Shawcross and Terrell (1966: 416) have found examples at Oruarangi taken from a dog’s tibia. In my view, dog bone would not be the most suitable material for a composite hook designed to catch very large fish such as sharks or groper (Polyprion oxygeneios), where the point would be attached well away from the wooden elbow. Instead, it is suggested that the Oruarangi Point was


part of a rather small composite hook for catching smaller fish species. However, this is only hypothetical.

By contrast, I think that the ‘Serendipity Point’ was attached at the tip of a large U-shaped hook. All examples are made from human bone for maximum strength, and their small size would be ideally suited to the point of a large wooden composite hook. Again, it is suggested that the external barb is simply for retaining the bait on the hook. It will be noted that all examples of these points are embellished with denticulation. It is possible that these points were made from broken one-piece hooks, utilising the point portion by refurbishing it with an outer barb and attaching it to a U-shaped wooden shank.

Thus characterised, the Oruarangi and Serendipity externally barbed points functioned in a somewhat different manner, and it is therefore useful to distinguish them from each other with different names. Both hook forms are quite rare. A few examples of external barbs are known on hooks from the South Island (Hjarno 1967: 29), but they do not have the marked incurved tips, as exemplified at both Serendipity Cave and Oruarangi.

Unfortunately, no material from the surface finds or the small excavation has been dated. The artefacts as a group share several features of late prehistoric assemblages of the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries in the South Island. The extensive use of human bone as a raw material, the pronounced embellishment of artefacts, and the use of nephrite, taken together, suggest that an earlier date is less likely. However, as this verges upon circular reasoning it would be very useful to radiocarbon date more than one sample from the site.

To find 38 fishhooks plus other artefacts sitting on the surface of a cave surely suggests that nobody had visited the cave since they were left there. If a sizeable group of people knew and used the cave it is reasonable to think that someone in the group would have returned in the intervening period. I think that this cave was being used by, at most, a very small number of people, possibly only one or two fishermen. The character of the artefacts and raw materials suggests that it is an integrated assemblage designed for fishing and the maintenance of fishing equipment. This is why the term ‘fisherman’s kit’ seems so appropriate, but it raises the question of the manner in

which fishing gear was stored and carried, i.e. what was the nature of the ‘kit’?

Many early historical records from New Zealand and the tropical Pacific show that Polynesians kept collections

of fishhooks in a container, and some types are still in use today. Figure 5.9 shows two very similar fishing-boxes made of wood from

Kapingamarangi and Nukuoro. These fishing-boxes have tight fitting

lids and are designed to float if washed

Age of the assemblage

Discussion

Figure 5.9 Two fishhook boxes from Polynesian outliers in Micronesia. The large specimen is from Kapingamarangi, and the smaller one from nearby Nukuoro. Author’s collection and photo.

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overboard, so that the valuable hooks inside are not lost. The lid is lashed onto the fishing-box with coconut sennit, which will shrink in sea water keeping the lid tightly secured.

Boxes were not the only type of container used for holding fishing gear, and Hamilton recorded the following relating to the New Zealand Maori:

When setting out, each fisherman would put into the canoe his bait and his hooks, carefully wrapped up in a neat kete made specially for that purpose, and having loops and a long fine cord affixed to the edges, so that it might be tied tightly, and keep the hooks and spare barbs from being lost (Hamilton 1908: 48).

Hamilton illustrated a collection of these kete from the Taranaki coast, together with the copper and iron hooks which they contained, and noted that they were deposited in the Dominion Museum. Hamilton’s figure (ibid.: 45 and Fig. 43) shows a handsome collection of Maori hooks from the early historical period. Many similar specimens and the fishhook kete are still in the National Museum Te Papa, and have been composed into a montage (Figure 5.10), similar to Hamilton’s original illustration. Some of the hooks and kete may be the same as those illustrated by Hamilton, but Museum records do not allow us to be certain of this. Hamilton also recorded an interesting observation reported to him by Captain Gilbert Mair:

Figure 5.10 A collection of early historic copper and iron Maori fishhooks and kete, arranged in similar fashion to Hamilton’s illustration (1908: 46). Courtesy of

National Museum Te Papa Tongarewa.


Many years ago a huge hollow tree, near the mouth of the Wairarapa Lake, blew down in a gale and burst asunder, disclosing the fact that it had been fitted inside as a storehouse for fish-hooks of all kinds, and of great age (Hamilton 1908: 36).

This has a parallel with finds of archaeological caches of fishhooks and it also has many parallels in modern-day behaviour in small Pacific Islands. I have often seen people (men especially) hiding caches of valuable items in the forks of trees and in the thatch of houses. Such caches should not be confused with large storehouses of fishing equipment, more probably communally owned rather than personal property. Such storehouses were observed by Crozet during his visit to New Zealand in A.D. 1771–2. He observed three: one containing weapons of warfare and various implements such as adzes, and stone raw materials; a second one for food including dried fish; and a third for fishing equipment:

The third storehouse contains the rope, fishing lines, the flax for making rope, thread and rushes for making string, an immense quantity of fishhooks of every size from the smallest to the largest, stones cut to serve as lead weights, and pieces of wood cut to serve as floats. In this warehouse they keep all the paddles of their war-canoes; it is there that they make their nets, and when they have finished one they carry it to the extremity of the village, or every net in the form of a seine to a separate cabin (Crozet 1891: 34).

This passage was noticed by both Hamilton (1908: 36) and Best (1977: 9) without further comment, which is somewhat surprising because at face value is appears to conflict with the view that fishhooks were the property of individuals rather than being communally owned. Canoe paddles are also items which, at least in my experience in the tropical Pacific, are owned by individuals. Indeed, they are manufactured according to individual taste, with subtle differences in balance and especially in the exact size and feathering of the blade. Men paddling a canoe would not use a paddle belonging to someone else, and if picked up in error and used for a moment they would make light-hearted scornful remarks about it. The storehouse described by Crozet sounds very like the equivalent of a canoe shed or men’s house in the tropical Pacific. To my knowledge, this is the only description of a communal fishing storehouse in early Maori historical records.

The term ‘cache’ is often used to refer to something that is secret and deliberately hidden away from view in some way. This applies well to the behaviour mentioned above of placing a container of valuable items in a tree or in the thatch of a house. However, it does not apply to the storehouse just mentioned, and it is not necessarily appropriate to a fishing-box, the function of which is to keep together a collection of fishing gear so that it is safe from accident. It has become the custom to refer to archaeological finds of closely associated objects, such as adzes or fish-hooks, as caches, but not all these examples may have been secret and hidden. We need to be a little careful in how we infer the original behaviour associated with these collections. A collection

94 Vastly Ingenious

of fishhooks kept in a fishing-box or a kete, when lost by its owner, and later found by an archaeologist, can also be referred to as a cache even though there may be no evidence of its having been hidden. A closely associated collection of items in the layer of an archaeological site is a similar example. This is another sense of ‘cache’, referring to storing or packing something together as a single entity. The Serendipity Cave assemblage can be described as a cache in this sense.

What kind of container would be required for the Serendipity Cave assemblage? There are too many pieces for a wooden fishing box of the kind illustrated in Figure 5.9, especially since quite large pieces of bone were part of the assemblage. It is more likely that it was a large plaited basket, or several smaller ones, of the kind illustrated in Figure 5.10.

Turning to the use of the hooks at Serendipity Cave, two series are present, one for barracouta, and another for baited line fishing. Barracouta only visit this area in any abundance during late winter and spring (Leach 2006: 54), and the large number of barracouta points in the assemblage suggests that mass capture was envisaged. The stains on the basal part of several suggests that at least a few were ready for use at short notice any time when barracouta were running inshore. To have 26 single-purpose hooks available implies that redundancy was required. Should one hook get broken while in use, it could be replaced with another very quickly, with minimum fuss and loss of time in fishing, an important advantage in exploiting a moving school of fish.

Smoothwater Bay is a beautiful location for fishing, with a sandy foreshore at its head and rocky shorelines on each side running out to headlands. It would be possible to catch barracouta from the rocks, and engage in baited line fishing from there too. No canoe would be required. However, the area may have been visited by canoe from further afield, such as Jackson Bay, by people who used the cave as a temporary shelter. Once the location of the cave is known, it is easy to get to it from the shore.

The fisherman’s kit from Serendipity Cave is a magnificent assem-blage, probably belonging to the late prehistoric period of the South Island. It probably represents the work of one man, and it displays considerable craftsmanship in bone working. The assemblage shows that a fishing kit was not a static entity, but rather in a state of continuous manufacture, development, and technological evolution. New hooks were being started, and older ones (presumably still in use) were being refined and embellished at the same time. Some of the Serendipity Cave hooks, in their similarity to those from other archaeological sites, demonstrate the conservative aspect of the fisherman’s art, and the importance of maintaining cultural traditions. Others, in their uniqueness, display the creative mind of a fisherman experimenting with new forms. The visit to this cave is most likely to have been transient, as there are few signs of permanent habitation in this general area. What the geographic origin of this fisherman was, and why his valuable kit was left behind, can only be surmised. It is, however, a valuable gift to posterity.

Conclusion


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

REFERENCES CITED

Allo, J. 1970. The Maori dog – a study of the Polynesian dog in New Zealand. Unpublished MA Thesis, Anthropology, University of Auckland.

Anderson, A.J. 1981. ‘Barracouta fishing in prehistoric and early historic New Zealand’, Journal de la Société des Océanistes 34 (72–73): 145–158.

Beck, R.J. 1981. ‘A new development in understanding the prehistoric usage of nephrite in New Zealand’, In Archaeological Studies of Pacific Stone Resources, B.F. Leach and J.M. Davidson eds, pp. 21–29, British Archaeological Reports 104, Oxford.

Best, E. 1977. Fishing Methods and Devices of the Maori, Government Printer, Wellington. [Dominion Museum Bulletin 12. Repaginated reprint of 1929 edition.]

Crozet, J.M. 1891. Crozet’s voyage to Tasmania, New Zealand, the Ladrone Islands, and the Philippines in the years 1771–1772, Translated by Roth H.L. from the original French

edition 1793, Truslove & Shirley, London.

Davidson, J.M. 1978. Archaeological salvage excavations at Paremata, Wellington, New Zealand, Records of the National Museum 1(13): 203–236.

Davidson, J.M. and Leach, B.F. 1996. ‘Fishing on Nukuoro Atoll: Ethnographic and archaeological viewpoints’, In Mémoire de Pierre, Mémoire D’Homme: Tradition et Archéologie en Océanie. Hommage à José Garanger, M. Julien, M. Orliac and C. Orliac eds, pp. 184–202, Publication de la Sorbonne, Paris.

Fisher, V.F. 1935. The material culture of Oruarangi, Matatoki, Thames. 2: Fish hooks, Records of the Auckland Institute and Museum 1(6): 287–300.

Furey, L. 1996. Oruarangi: The archaeology and material culture of a Hauraki pa. Bulletin of the Auckland Institute and Museum 17.

Hamilton, A. 1908. Fishing and Sea-foods of the Ancient Maori, Dominion Museum Bulletin 2, Government

Printer, Wellington.Hjarno, J. 1967. Maori fish-hooks in

southern New Zealand, Records of the Otago Museum, Anthropology 3, Dunedin.

Leach, B.F. 1979. Excavations in the Washpool Valley, Palliser Bay, In Prehistoric Man in Palliser Bay, B.F. Leach, and H.M. Leach, eds, pp. 67–136, National Museum of New Zealand, Bulletin 21, Wellington.

Leach, B.F. 2006. Fishing in pre-European New Zealand, New Zealand Journal of Archaeology Special Publication 16 and archaeofauna.

Lyon, G.L. 1965. ‘Science survey, Jacksons Bay 1965, Anthropology’, Science Record 15: 55.

Shawcross, F.W. and J.E. Terrell. 1966. ‘Paterangi and Oruarangi swamp pas’, Journal of the Polynesian Society 75(4): 404–429.

Sisson, S. and J.D. Grossman. 1953. The anatomy of domestic animals, W.B. Saunders, London.

I would like to acknowledge the help of several people in completing this paper. Ian Smith gave expert advice on the dog bones, Dr R.N. Patel identified the wood, Dr P. Houghton examined the human bone, and Russell Beck identified the nephrite. Thanks are also due to Wildlife rangers at Haast who provided accommodation to Les Groube and myself. Thanks are due to the various students who discovered Serendipity Cave, and made such an excellent job of recording the exact provenance of the individual artefacts. The plans in this report are almost entirely derived from their sketches. The artefact illustrations are the work of Sandra McElrea and Martin Fisher. Te Papa gave permission for Figure 5.10 to be published. Elsevier gave permission for Figure 5.8 to be published. Moira White of the Otago Museum gave invaluable advice matching up field catalogue numbers with those in the Otago Museum. Finally, I should like to thank G.L. Lyon for acting as a guide to the cave, and Les Groube for his good company in the extreme weather conditions which beset the expedition.

NOTES

1 It is especially appropriate that I should be writing up research which I carried out 41 years ago and publishing it in this volume. Janet Davidson has spent a great deal of her energies over the years publishing fieldwork and research carried out decades earlier, often of other colleagues. She fervently believes in the obligation to do this, and I know that she will be pleased to see this small contribution, late though it is.

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