Social & Cultural
This collection contains historical artefacts retrieved from the Kāpiti district. It is a representative selection of farming and other domestic and personal items which would have been found in local homes and residences in the late 19th century up until the middle of the 20th century. It also contains items associated with developing local industry and services such as flax and timber sawmilling both pre and post the arrival of settlers. The size of items ranges from small fishing flies up to a full-size grandfather clock. Of special note is the selection of phonographs from early desk top models to handsome floor standing gramophones both of which would have been the focus of household entertainment before the days of digital appliances and Spotify™.
Bellows for an Open Fireplace
Date: Unknown
Title: Bellows
Description: Bellows made of wood, possibly oak with leather and metal studs. There is an orange and white flower motif with green leaves painted on one side surrounded by a stippled surface. Used for blowing air onto an open fire by opening and closing the two handles which directs a jet of air onto the starting flame to increase intensity of fire.
Home Remedies Bottles
Date: Early 20th century
Title: Home remedies
Description: Living in remote locations settler families and workers needed a selection of home remedies to address common afflictions such as toothache, muscular aches and pains, rheumatism, lumbago and regular coughs and colds. This selection includes:
- Rawleighs Ready Relief,
- Gilseal Tincture of Iodine,
- Nyal Toothache Drops,
- Diuromil (blue bottle for rheumatism etc),
- Woods Great Peppermint Cure,
- Sloans Family Linament.
Theodolite
Date: Unknown but likely pre-1922
Title: A surveyor’s theodolite for surveying land boundaries
Description: A Troughton & Simms surveyor’s theodolite used to determine properties legal boundaries. Certainly, early settlers were keen on obtaining their own plot of land or farm. Some such as W. H. Field became substantial landowners in the Waikanae area and then moved into land development and subdivision which did not always meet with approval from the tangata whenua.
Māori Flax Tool
Date: Unknown
Title: Patu Muka/Flax Pounder
Description: The patu muka was used by early Maori to pound the inner part of herekeke flax leaves after they had been soaked, prior to using the fibres for weaving. This tool was recovered in 1973 in Reikorangi, during the construction of a rural airstrip.
Flax was the most important fibre plant to Māori in New Zealand. The uses of the flax fibre were numerous and varied. Clothing, mats, plates, baskets, ropes, bird snares, lashings, fishing lines and nets were all made from flax leaves. Floats or rafts were made from bundles of dried flower stalks. The abundant nectar from flax flowers was used to sweeten food and beverages.
Flax also had many medicinal uses. The sticky sap or gum that flax produces was applied to boils and wounds and used for toothache. Flax leaves were used in binding broken bones and matted leaves were used as dressings. Flax root juice was routinely applied to wounds as a disinfectant. Ref: www.doc.govt.nz