STONE LAMPS. 6i 



torn from a man's malo or a woman's /«'?< as there was need. One advantage of these 

 simple bowl lamps was that an increase of light was readily obtained by adding wicks, 

 an addition as easy as it is difficult to put a wick to a modern civilized lamp, and as 

 many could be added as the rim of the bowl would permit. 



Perhaps the Hawaiian maker of lamps gave freer rein to his fancy than did 

 workers in other stone objedls, but it will be seen by Plates XLVIII.-LII. that there 

 was some variety if little beautj- in this comparatively unimportant household utensil. 

 The simplest that I know is No. 121 1, shown in Fig. 59. A bubble in the lava has 

 been selected and the superfluous stone knocked away. It is a charmingly aesthetic 

 treatment, wholly free from the stiffness generally seen in these lamps. We neither 

 know who made it nor who used it. In this as in most of the Hawaiian remains there 

 is a complete impersonality : in the 

 few attributed to famous warriors or 

 high chiefs there is nothing peculiar, 

 the specimen is like dozens of other 

 specimens and so far as that goes 

 might have been made for Kaahu- 

 manu or Liloa, for Pele or Lono so 

 far as the stone shows any individu- 

 alism. Another peculiaritj- of the 

 Hawaiian mind helps to cut off the 

 entail as it were. Hawaiians seem 



FIG. 60. I.AMPS FROM BKOKKN 1'0L;NDF:KS. 



ashamed of all that their ancestors 



made or used in the ages before the advent of white civilization and have removed so 

 far as possible all relics of that indigenous civilization. Most of the stone articles that 

 could not be burned or conveniently thrown into the sea were buried or hidden in caves, 

 and only lately when there is some market value attached to these works of their prede- 

 cessors are they brought to light as a source of income. Under such circumstances it 

 woiild be difficult to establish any genuine genealogy. 



There is in some lamps an "improvement" showing some ingenuity. It appears 

 in the small cup lamp, No. 7728, on PL XLVII. A little cavity sunk in the bottom 

 of the bowl into which the last drops of oil might gravitate to feed the thirsty wick. 

 This is almost always about a quarter of an inch deep and wide, and appears in about 

 one-quarter of the lamps in the Museum colledlion. 



Another example of the utilization of natural opportunities is shown in No. 1203, 

 PI. XIvVIII., where two holes were taken and the surrounding cellular lava rudely 

 shaped into a lamp. A third slight depression is by the side of these two holes and 

 might easily have been deepened ; a shell attached to this indicates the seaside origin 

 of the holes for which a stone-boring echinoderm is perhaps responsible. 



C393] 



