Loom-woven Mats. gc 



No. 3570 it is seven inches, and the resultant mat looks like a sort of vegetable fur, 

 as may be seen in Fig. 95, and like fur would make fairly warm and comfortable gar- 

 ments. For presents these mats were greatlj- valued, but their use in the curious 

 "Tokens of Virginity" custom adds especial interest to the ethnologist, and it is not 

 iincommon to find them stained with human blood. Of those in this Museum the fol- 

 lowing list shows size and fineness : — 



Samoan Ie Sina in the Bishop Museum. 



2193 

 21S5 

 3570 

 3571 

 3572 

 21S6 



4 ft.X3 ft. — 9 to inch. Unbleached, unheckled bast. 



5 ft.X3 ft. — 17 to inch. White, fine fibre. 

 6.1 ft.X4.2 ft. — II to inch. White, fine fibre. 



5.7 ft. X 3-7 ft. — 9 to inch. White, fine fibre, coarser weave. 

 6.7 ft. X 3-5 ft. — 13-18 to inch. White, fine fibre, repaired. 

 4.7 ft.X3 ft. — 10 to inch. D^-ed, fine fibre. 



The weave is so loose that it is easy to increase the width at the expense of the 

 length, so that the measurements are approximate onl}'. 



I/OOm-WOven Mats. — From the Gilbert Islands on the east to Guam on the 

 west we find a rude but efficient loom for weaving fine mats, while throughout Poly- 

 nesia no looms are used, and deft fingers must plait together the strands of whatever 

 material to form a mat. With leaf strips or grass stems this is not very difficult, but 

 with fine flexible threads the difficult}^ is increased, and the finer the thread the greater 

 need of some mechanical assistance which the loom bars, however simple, and the shuttle 

 afford. Two types of weaving apparatus are found in this region, one which is a loom 

 in all its features, from which can readily be traced the more complicated forms of the 

 modern textile art, and a specimen from Ruk in the Caroline Islands is shown in 

 Fig. 96; the other, which, so far as I am aware, is confined to the island of Kusaie, is 

 a very different contrivance, and although I have two specimens in the Museum before 

 me, I cannot understand fully its working, nor have I been able to gather from those 

 who have visited Kusaie anj^ intelligible facts regarding its employment, and of this 

 t3'pe Fig. 98 presents an example. Under ordinary circumstances one should be able, 

 when he has the tools used and the finished product, as in the present case, to connect 

 the two, but in this I have failed, and the Masters Finsch, Kubar\' and Parkinson, who 

 have explored that region with ethnological skill, have failed to help me. The latter gives 

 a full and interesting account of the first loom,'^ and from his account I shall take the 

 liberty of quoting all that may explain more fully the loom before us and its work. It is 

 interesting to find that on this island of Ontong Java, which was named by Tasman in 



^'Nachtrage zur Ethnographie der Ongtong-Java-Inseln, B. Parkinson: Archives Interna. d'Ethnographie, xi, 

 p. 207. In a note on p. 242, a figure is given to show the horizontal position in which this loom is used. 



