https://doi.org/10.32912/ram.2020.55.2
Abstract
Māori wove a diverse array of textiles including a wide range of basketry. There has been little examination of the Māori pre-contact woven textiles from archaeological contexts in the collections of Auckland Museum, particularly those manufactured using the technique Māori call raranga. The key structural attributes of woven bags and baskets, and woven fragments from Te Wao Nui a Tiriwa (Waitakere Ranges), Tāmaki Makaurau were identified. These attributes included the raw material, weave form, strand width, pattern, and edge types, along with the type of commencement and finishing structures. Examination revealed diverse materials and manufacturing processes to create bags and baskets. Comparison with other Māori archaeological textiles from Aotearoa confirmed the value of a structure-based investigation to contribute to known customary and ethnographic knowledge bases. In addition, the presence of distinctive structural combinations has extended our understanding of raranga technology, revealing the continuity, and diversity, of Maori textile manufacturing processes in the past.
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Citation
Mckendry, L. (2020). Māori archaeological textiles: a structural analysis of Māori raranga 'woven' basketry from the Waitakere Ranges in Auckland Museum. https://doi.org/10.32912/ram.2020.55.2