THE ADMIRALTY ISLANDS. 471 



tions of circles, triangles, toothing, and radiate patterns. The 

 shell back-ground is often graved also at its margin. Symmetry 

 is evidently striven after, but with the appliances available the 

 execution falls short here and there of the design. Nevertheless 

 these ornaments are very beautiful. Closely similar ornaments 

 are worn in the Solomon Islands, and also in New Hanover, and 

 in the far-off Marquesas Islands, curiously enough. 



A regular style of ornamentation is preserved for each class 

 of ornaments, weapons, and implements. Thus I saw no Ovulum 

 shells with curved pattern like those on the gourds. Both these 

 and the bracelets bore simple patterns of diagonal lines graved 

 and blacked. The spears, also, never bore curves. 



The sticks or spoons with which the chunam is carried from 

 the gourds to the mouth are often richly carved in the handle. 

 The skulls of Turtles suspended in the temples are ornamented 

 with patterns painted in the three usual colours. The human 

 skulls are likewise decorated, and some have eyes of pearl shell 

 inserted into the orbits on a background of black clay. 



The musical instruments used are the Conch shells, per- 

 forated on the side as usual, a very simple Jews-harp, made of 

 bamboo, of the usual Melanesian pattern, Pan-pipes, of three to 

 five pipes of different lengths (the New Hebrides natives have 

 Pan-pipes with three pipes), and lastly, Drums. These latter are 

 hollowed out cylinders of wood with a narrow longitudinal slit 

 only opening to the exterior. Some of them are small, 1-J- foot 

 or so in length, and are carried sometimes in the canoes. The 

 larger drums I saw only in the temples. They are cylinders. 

 4 feet in height and 1^ foot in diameter, and are fixed upright 

 at the entrances of the temples. There were four such at the 

 four corners of one temple. The slit in these is not more than 

 4 or 5 inches broad, and I do not understand how the cylinders 

 are hollowed out by the natives. Yery similar drums exist at 

 the New Hebrides, at Efate, e.g., where they are stuck upright in 

 the ground in circles.* 



The natives seemed to have no idea of tune, they blew the 

 notes on the Pan-pipe hap-hazard. The chief of Wild Island 



* " A Year in the New Hebrides," by F. A. Campbell. Melbourne, 

 George Robertson, 1873, p. Ill, figure Fili Id Efate. 



