278 THE SPEAR-BECKET OF THE PACIFIC ISLANDS, 



square-sinnet implement, with five tags to the eye and a thimble, 

 but no collar, whilst the overhand-knot has a free end instead of 

 being incurved to form a crest. Mr. Turner, speaking of coco- 

 nut shell armlets, says — "The}' wear one, two, three, and 

 sometimes half-a-dozen of these on either arm, close abov'e the 

 elbow, and from them they suspend their spear-thrower and 

 sling." Mr. Hedley has been good enough to reproduce Mr. 

 Turner's illustration (fig. 12). 



The spear-becket is also known on Aneiteum, another of the 

 New Hebridean Islands, judging in the first instance from the 

 following remarks of a second missionary, the Re\-. A. W. Murra}', 

 who in describing the death of a native of that island says* — 

 " As soon as life was extinct the body was laid out on a mat and a 

 spear and a club placed by its side; also, the small noose which 

 is used in thi'owing the spear was placed on the forefinger of 

 the right hand." 



I am under obligations to the Rev. J. H. Lawrie, late of the 

 Free Church of Scotland Mission in the New Hebrides, for the 

 loan of a spear-becket he obtained whilst residing on Aneiteum, 

 represented in fig. 13, also drawn by Mr. Hedley. It is of very 

 simple construction, nine inches long, of a round cord made of 

 plaited rush or grass, a knot at the distal end, and an eye at the 

 proximal, the plait of the latter being more or less flattened, and 

 without a'n}^ collar, thimble, or tags. It will be observed that 

 the Tanna becket figured by Mr. Turner and that lent me by 

 Mr. Lawrie from Aneiteum differ greatl}' in construction. 



Yet a third island of this group seems to have possessed a 

 spear-becket, for in referring to Yate, Efate, or Sandwich Island, 

 Mr. J. E. Erskine remarks! — " From a village ... a canoe 

 pushed off to intercept us as we were working in, one of the three 

 men occupying it handing up a becket of plaited cord, such as we 

 had seen in the hands of the Tannese for throwing their spears." 



* ^lissions in Western Polynesia, 1S63, p. 51. 

 + Jonrnal of a Cruise among the Islands of the W. Pacific, 1853, p. 323. 



