510 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER 



» 



Oxford. Towards the bases of the pinnacles the crockets are 

 carved in the form of well-defined gurgoyle-like animals, with 

 open months ; but in tracing the successive crockets upwards 

 the shape is seen to degenerate gradually in each until towards 

 the tops of the pinnacles the crockets have merely a sort of scroll- 

 form, the origin of which could not possibly be guessed if it were 

 looked at separately. 



It seems probable that a very large proportion of what 

 appears, in savage art, to be mere simple pattern ornamenta- 

 tion is in reality derived originally from degeneration of outline 

 drawings representing natural objects. The lowest savages, such 

 as the Australians, excel far more in their drawings of animals 

 and men than in their pattern ornaments on their weapons, and 

 the earliest attempts at art known are drawings of animals, such 

 as the well-known one of the Mammoth cut on its own ivory 

 by contemporaneous man. 



At Hilo I obtained from some natives a short stone club* 

 which appears to have been hitherto unknown as a Sandwich 

 Island weapon, and is interesting as approaching in some par- 

 ticulars the New Zealand " Mere." It is made of basalt, with care- 

 fully ground surfaces, and is about 10 inches in length. It is 

 cylindrical in form with three sharp edges at the striking end, 

 and was slung to the wrist by a string passed through a hole at 

 one end. It was called " pohaku newa," " stone club." 



My attention has been drawn by my friend Mr. A. W. Franks, 

 F.R.S., to the resemblance between the Hawaian images of gods 

 and the New Zealand human images. The accompanying 

 figures are given for comparison. It will be seen that there is 

 in them a similar extraordinary increase in the size of the 

 mouth, which encroaches upon and renders insignificant the 

 remainder of the head. Mr. Franks is of opinion that, as far as 

 regards the special development of art, and forms of implements 

 of use amongst the New Zealanders, that people are nearly 

 allied to the Hawaians, certainly more nearly so than to the 

 Samoans, from colonists of which race Hall supposed that the 

 Maoris were sprung. The stone adzes of the New Zealanders 



* H. N. Moseley, " Note on Stone Club." Journal of Anthropological 

 Inst. 1877, p. 52, PI. XVIII. 



