Bone Tools

• Oddly enough, evidence of the use of bone tools by the Maori people has been difficult to find. While surrounding cultures seemed to have used bone tools extensively, only a few fragments of these cutting edges have been found in New Zealand, almost entirely in the Otago district. According to H.D. Skinner, in the Journal of the Polynesian Society, these fragments most likely came from small chisels used to carve wood.
  
  

Stone Tools

• When Captain Cook arrived in New Zealand it was stone tools that the Maori were using primarily. He reports how adzes and axes made of "hard black stone and some of green talc" were used to build houses and canoes. Chisels were made of a similar stone, but for fine carving he observed that they used small pieces of jasper, broken off from a far larger lump. When that small piece became "blunted they would throw it away and take another."
  
  

Metal Tools

• When Europeans arrived in New Zealand they brought with them metal tools that would revolutionize Maori art. Buildings and canoes became bigger, and their carvings became more complex. According to Wellington City Libraries, the arrival of Europeans also influenced the way these tools were used, as the designs of the time reflected the realization that traditional Maori society could be threatened.
  
  

Present Day

• In the present day the Maori people are now fully integrated with New Zealand society while maintaining a culture of their own, such that they are still developing new designs and ideas to ensure that Maori artistic techniques survive into the future. Although metal tools are used by the Maori, many artists prefer to go back to the techniques of their ancestors and continue to use stone tools to carve their designs.