MISCELLANEOUS OBJECTS. 99 



Of these the best example is on the road to Kaimuki district near Leahi, on Oahn. 

 They are simply large stones supported on three or four smaller ones and their vibra- 

 tions are excited by beating with small stones. I cannot find that the old Hawaiians 

 made much of these stones. Another remarkable stone found also in the same region 

 (and elsewhere) has one of its surfaces scored so deep and in so clear a manner by 

 volcanic acftion as to suggest inscriptions, and images of runic staves or Etruscan 

 stelae arise in the imagination of the antiquary. They are Nature's handiwork, not 

 man's, and to the same category must be assigned the stones here marked with com- 

 parativel}- large depressions, of distinct hemispherical form, often quite as definite as 

 similar markings seen in Europe on stones forming part of prehistoric tombs : they 

 are here only the remains of bubbles in the lava. Not infrequently has my atteution 

 been called to these as doubtless ancient games of the Hawaiians. 



Genuine inscriptions, however, do exist on the Hawaiian islands, in caves, on 

 exposed stones, and on lava flows where considerable flat surface is presented. Of these 

 pi6lographs many have been colledled, some photographed, and some cast, and thej- are 

 now being studied with a view to future publication. Thej' range from a simple glj'ph 

 to record the important fact that the sculptor had completed the circuit of the island, 

 Hawaii for example, — a feat as difficult in ancient da^-s as a pilgrimage from Damascus 

 to Mecca, — to curious conventionalized figures of men (or devils) and animals. Until 

 these have received further study no question of their date or origin need be raised. 

 They are found on all the principal islands from Kauai to Hawaii, and are of similar 

 charac^ler throughout the group. 



Anv one who has had the patience to read this chapter through and to examine 

 the many illustrations will be struck with the entire absence of surface decoration. 

 Not a fret nor a guilloche, not even lines or dots are used on the surface of stone dishes 

 or implements to relieve the primitive roughness! Even the stone images (except the 

 Manoa bust, which shows foreign influence) are devoid of the slight ornament of cloth- 

 ing, and if their stone work alone survived, the ancient Hawaiians would not have any 

 standing among decorative tribes. The Papuans and Melanesians, so much their in- 

 feriors physically and mentall}', would rank far above them in ornamentation. We must 

 have patience until the patterns of their kapa can be shown, and the decoration of their 

 gourd vessels, when it will, I think, be shown that the}- appreciated decoration if they 

 were not adepts in the higher forms. In the beauty of pure form as shown in their 

 feather helmets and in the best of their ancient iinicke they 3'ield to none. Perhaps if 

 they had made pottery in place of working intraftable stone the result might have been 

 different. The wonderfully decorative carving (on wood) of the Maori and the Man- 

 gaian, both of the same family with the Hawaiian, show what the Polynesian can do 

 when his facvUties are turned in that direcftion. 



[431I 



