4 BRfGHAM ON HAIFA If AN FEATHER JJ'ORN. 



was a protection when fighting. .M\- reason for tliis attribution is that there are in the liritish 

 Museum long, oblong boxes formerly supposed to come from Hawaii: by an inscription, only partly 

 legible, on one of them in George Bennet's handwriting, we know now that these boxes are Tahitian. 



The inscription is as follows : \4 native box made of the wood of the bread fruit tree eon- 



taining the lear-li/ce oriia/iieiits Hatttia, presented by liini to G. Bennet, 1S22, and wltieh lie savs 



li'ere "a'orn by a/so and precedins; icings of /fi/aiieine.' This particular box was received, with 



other Ea.stern Pacific specimens, from the Sheffield Literary and Philosophical Society ; the speci- 

 mens original]}- in the Museum are without history, as are also the feather ornaments now under dis- 

 cussion. It may well be, therefore, that they were received at the same time, and possibly formed a 

 portion of one of the early collections either of Captain Cook or Sir Joseph Banks. As against this 

 theor\' \\'illiams, in his Missionaty Jinfeiprises, p. 498, says that 'at Tahiti and Hervey Islands there 





E^'y=>'-^ 



s^^ v - - ■ -g? S-i "^t - r^-;- 1^'''^^-~^>', 





^ \ 



^ 



*t' tA*-^*^''^^^' 



V 



FIG. I. I'NDHR SIIJE OF ONK OF THE MAT.S .SHOWN I .\" l'I..\TIi \'I. HI' THIS \(JLUiIK. 



are but few varieties of the feathered tribes ; and these are not remarkable either for the beauty of 

 their plumage or for the sweetness of their notes.' If, therefore, the mats and coronets were manu- 

 factured in the Tahitian group they must have been from imported feathers. Failing Tahiti there is 

 the Island of Rurutu, in the Austral group, 'the people of which are distinguished above all others 

 in these seas, for their ta.ste and skill in finery of every kind, from the feathered helmets of their 

 warriors to the carving on their canoes In manners, dress and language they very nearly resem- 

 ble the inhabitants of Tahiti and Huaheine.' ( Tyerman and Betinct's J'oyages. 1S31, \'ol. I., p. 496.) 

 The only reason for placing these objects in the Hawaiian .section, until some definite localitj- is ob 

 tained, is that the feathers used are evidently from the same birds as tho.se from which the Hawaiians 

 gathered their stores." 



I cannot .see any good reason for changing the opinion expressed on page 37, that 

 as the feathers are ttndotibtedly Hawaiian (the birds that j-ield them being peculiar to the 

 Hawaiian group), and as the method of attaching the feathers was not unknown on this 



grottp, the mats are more likely- to be Hawaiian than anything else yet suggested. For the 



[438] 



