AR'J^-30 DESIGN- AREAS IN OCEANIA KRIEGER 21 



The war spears of the Fiji IsLander are made from a single tree 

 trunk under extraordinary difficulties for the worker. They are 

 ornamented with braided coconut fiber cord and carved. One va- 

 riety has four radiating points lashed to the shaft. The Kingsmill 

 Islander fashions shark-tooth spears and daggers. These weapons 

 are good examples of the skill of these islanders in drilling wood 

 and shark's teeth. Some of the weapons resemble swords. Armor 

 of knotted coconut fiber was used and a helmet of spring fish skin. 



Ornaments of the Fijians show an extensive use of shell and much 

 skill in working them into form. The necklaces and other orna- 

 ments worked from whale-tooth ivory are remarkable examples 

 of patient industry. 



In contrasting the carvings in the round from Melanesia and from 

 Polynesia, one notes at once that the former are painted while 

 Polynesian figurines of hardwood are always unpainted. Further- 

 more, it is noted that the Melanesian figurines are carved from light 

 wood. There are many accompanying differences in structure and 

 design, also in function. 



Melanesian art. — In the islands of Melanesia north and east of 

 Australia we find examples of cultural diffusion from two radically 

 distinct ethnic elements — the dark-skinned, kinky-haired Melane- 

 sians and the wavy-haired, brown-skinned, old Polynesians, who 

 were anciently closely linked with the straight-haired, brown-skinned 

 old Malayans. Immigrants from Malaysia passed through Mela- 

 nesia on their way to settle in those islands now known as Polynesia. 

 These old Malayan immigrants absorbed Melanesian decorative 

 motivation and applied designs after Melanesian patterns to their 

 sculptures in wood, but also distributed early Malayan design pat- 

 terns along the coasts of Melanesia, in those islands where they 

 sojourned. This intermixture with Malayan designs helps to set 

 Melanesian designs apart as distinct from Australian-Papuan deco- 

 rative designs. To be sure, the old Melanesian art survived, and 

 it is sufficiently distinctive in its elementary manifestations to 

 characterize the entire Melanesian art area as separate from Indone- 

 sian or Malayan art areas. 



Melanesia is characterized through the growth of population units 

 more extensive than those of Papua or of Australia, where simple 

 hunters and gatherers lived their nomadic existence. Better houses 

 and a more close-knit social organization grew along with handi- 

 crafts and decorative arts. Wood carving in the round served to 

 represent honored and venerated or feared gods and ancestors. 

 These figurines were not painted; at the most, one provided them 

 with decorative textile covering in red colors. This color was con- 

 sidered sacred, although yellow was also used. The nonpainting of 

 sacred ancestral figurines extended as far as Indonesia and Micro- 



