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Show Ik 6 long lists of their forefather's names. These they could chant off in their songs and dances. A list of such ancestry was called whakanapa. Often thise were carved into sticks as an aid to memory. Such a stick was called a rakau whakaoana. The carvers of Roa's tribe were probably the finest carvers in all of Aotearoa. Roa carved his ancestry and the story of his tribe in symmetrical patterns using delicate spirals, notches and whorls. The human figures he formed were deliberately distorted because of the Maori belief that man must not approach too close to the handiwork of the gods, who made man nerfect. Fe also carved only three fingers with or without the thumb as tradition demanded on humanistic carved figures. After several days, Roa emerged from the forest gaunt and tired, but hapny. The carved crutch was a thing of nracticality and beauty. He now had feelings of ambivalence about nresenting it to his brother. Would Ruruku accent it with gratitude, or would he once again verbally abuse and insult him? He consulted his mother. "You will find your brother changed and re- |
