154 Hawaiian Nets and Netting. 



making very broad fish nets, or when there was need for rapid niaunfadlure, two or 

 three men would net along the same side, following each other. The cord, of the 

 first man to finish, was knotted to the ends of the succeeding rows when completed and 

 was the first to begin the next series. 



Netted Malo. — Of netted malo there are two specimens in the Museum, each 

 with a mesh of about .25 inch. One, No. 2842, is a plain piece of netting 15.3 ft. long 

 and 7 in. wide.*' The malo, or loin cloth, of olona netting was alwaj'S an alii's gar- 

 ment and was worn hy him on canoe voyages. 



The other specimen,'" No. 6921, 12.2 ft. long and 5.7 in. wide, came to the 

 Museum from the Provisional Government of Hawaii after the revolution in 1893, as a 

 relic of royalt}-, with the royal feather robes. It has been the nae of a feather malo, and 

 in sewing on the tufts of feathers, the meshes have been so compressed as to give the 

 fabric the semblance of cloth. The stitches are in good order still, but few shafts and 

 no feathers remain. There are not left enough fragments of feathers to even show the 

 general color, but red, yellow and black stumps were found, all on the front end. Near 

 this end are the remains of black feathers on the outline of a diamond, and a little 

 nearer the middle, thread bindings indicating the former presence of a feather cross 

 shaped like St. Andrew's. To the ends of the malo are attached rows of human molars, 

 and to the sides near the cross a single molar. Looped to the sides, every two inches 

 for the entire length, is a cord enclosed in a fine cjdindrical netting, by which feathers 

 have been fastened in the form of a lei. 



Upena Manu. — The Museum possesses but one specimen of bird net,*' No. 

 1 38. This is a diamond-shaped net, mesh 5 inches, made with the same sized twine 

 as in nae. Its total length when stretched is 16.25 ^^^t, and in width it increases from 

 1 8 meshes at the beginning to 40 meshes at the middle, thence diminishing to 13 

 meshes at the end. At each end the meshes are bound together. The increase 

 of the number of meshes in a row is accomplished by running on an additional loop 

 (as at^, Fig. Ill) at regular intervals, while the decrease is effedled hy the use of the 

 mauae knot, called viakakiikai. A cord of about .1 inch in thickness is run along 

 both sides, but there are no sticks attached, nor any place for attachment. The net 



^'Ibid, pi. ix, midilk- of upper figure. 



'-Two old Iliiwaiiaii ladies who had been continually at court durini; the reigns of several monarchs were 

 shown this malo, and both independently affirmed that it was the malo of I_,iloa. The story of Liloa and his son 

 Umi has been told too many times to repeat here. Liloa reigned on Hawaii at the latter part of the lifteenth century. 

 It is possible that olonA fibre may outlast the intervening period, and, as the malo constituted the most important 

 part of Umi's family credentials, the succeeding ruling chiefs would have preserved it with reverential care. There 

 are several faint stains on the netting, but whether Ijlood stains or not it is impossible to tell. 



"15. P. B. Museum Memoirs, vol. i, no. i, p. 13. 



