MAORI POWDER HORN -MUSKET WAR ERA
 

HERE IS MY SCRIMSHAW BULLOCK POWDER HORN MOST PROBABLY FROM THE MUSKET WAR ERA FROM NEW ZEALAND,THE INTER-TRIBAL WARS BETWEEN 1818 AND 1833 GOT THE NAME OF "THE MUSKET WARS" WHICH WERE NEW ZEALAND -WIDE.ALL TRIBES WERE TRADING TO OBTAIN MUSKETS.
THE PEG IS MADE OF SILVER AND DEER ANTLER

Very interesting. Do you think it was Maori made from introduced cattle? or a decorated British piece. The silver and antler has a Scottish feel about it to me. Reminds me of Scottish snuff mulls.

GREETINGS TIM
THE SCRIMSHAW DESIGN IS DEFINATELY MAORI DESIGNS ,BUT YOU MAY BE RIGHT AND COULD HAVE BEEN A TRADE ITEM ORIGINATING IN SCOTLAND OR ENGLAND,CHEERS

Its certainly different!

i read you can buy a (dressed) pig for about $600 (weight dependent)
so 25 pigs x 600 =$15000 dollars. (live ones are a bit cheaper)

quite expensive for a musket. they were being ripped off!

even the earlier 8 pigs is dear. ($4800)

rampant inflation. i blame the EU of course. :)

a carton of potatoes can go for about $24 so 160 x $24 =$3840, so roughly equivalent. initially, depending on basket size. ;)

you could probably by the exact same musket, made yesterday in the khyber pass area for a lot less in goats, now that the musket market has dropped out of sight with the popularity of ak47's.

please do not try to buy muskets in the khyber pass area with pigs, it is not a legal currency there. offering them would not turn out well.

Wayne, i'm not sure that you are posting this on the right thread...
;) :)

Hi Bandook.
That is a really nice, and most unusual powder horn. And coming from your area and time period probably makes it quite rare. Super interesting look. What is the length and diameter?
Rick

Thanks Rick,i shall come back to u,bought it 8-9 years back at auction,high time I know more about it,thanks for your comments

the small photo next to the horn refers to the price of a musket to the maori at various time frames, in pigs ansd th equivalent in baskets of potatoes, so i was putting them into a modern context and reference to it's modern equivalent. the op evidently thought that was relevant and included it.

a musket and it's accoutrements, including ammnunition and devices used to carry it, powder, shot, spare flints, and later percussion caps were also expensive items that must be traded for, embellished, decorated, captured, retraded, etc.

Interesting piece, was there any sort of provenance that came with it ? As mentioned by Tim, the stopper does have a bit of a Scottish snuff mull look to it. There were of course many Scots who emigrated to New Zealand in the past.

From the images, the incised decorations to the horn do seem to have age to them, but of course they could also have been done by a European as well as a Maori, either in New Zealand or elsewhere. The leather cord is presumably modern ?