The operator who was entrusted with the making of the moku, was a man of great importance, though he might be of the lowest rank. The possession of a skilled artist on skin was thought so much of in the old days, that wars were sometimes waged to determine who should benefit by his talent. He was a sort of R.A., and M.R.C.S., and king-at-arms in combination. This individual had his cases of instruments, little hoe-shaped chisels and gouges and knives, made of sharks' teeth, flint, bone, and wood. Very neat and beautifully finished weapons they were. The pigments consisted of charcoal, a prepared red earth, and the juice of the hinau tree. The proud and happy patient was laid down on his back, and forcibly held in position by assistants. Then the operator sketched out the pattern on his face with charcoal. Each line or dot was chiselled in with a suitable tool, a wooden hammer being used to send the blade well into the flesh. The blood of course gushed freely forth, and was scraped off with an implement made for the purpose. The pigments were rubbed into the incisions as these were proceeded with. As may well be supposed, the pain was simply excruciating, but it was considered unmanly to flinch from it. Subsequent inflammation was generally severe, and might last for weeks, while the whole operation would have to be effected bit by bit, over possibly a year or two. To add to the hero's misery, all this while he was tapu, or unclean, and could not touch food with his hands, or live in a wharè (house). Unless he was sedulously attended to by the ladies of his family, as was the proper thing, he would undergo no trifling amount of inconvenience. The moku served a curious purpose at one time. Clumsy though Maori fingers are, they seem to have a natural aptitude for sketching and carving. So, when the earliest missionaries and others called upon certain chiefs to sign the title-deeds of estates they had bought from them, the Maori did so by drawing little sketches of the moku that adorned their faces. Each said, "That is me, and no one else." These curious autographs are still preserved by the Societies in London. It was the practice in the old days to preserve the heads of distinguished men who were slain in battle. This was done by smoking and drying them in such a way as to keep the emblazoned skin intact. As soon as traders began to come from Sydney, they were ready to barter valuable commodities for these relics, which commanded high fancy prices among the museums and curio-hunters of Europe. Great inducements were, therefore, offered to trading Maori to bring heads into market. The product seemed to be going to bring wealth into the country, and industrial enterprise in this direction speedily quickened. Trading tribes went to war on all sides, in order that the supply of heads might be fully up to the demand for them.