42 Mai a7id- Basket Weaving. 



sword-shaped leaves themselves, and their spiny edges ; the long spikes of male, and 

 the shorter branches of female flowers, their delicions perfnme strongly recalling to 

 mind that of the vegetable ivory of South America; finally, the bright orange-coloured 

 drupes, formed into large heads of fruit, to say nothing of their insipid taste, appre- 

 ciated onh' by natives, are all so essentially different from what a European traveler 

 is accustomed to in his own country, that his attention is involuntarilj- arrested, and 

 he hardlj' ever fails to record it. The Voivoi or Kiekie is a stemless species with 

 leaves ten to twelve feet long, whicli delights in swampy localities of the forests, and 

 is occasionalh' cultivated to meet the demand. Fans, baskets, and the finest mats — 

 even those on which newl\- born babes, naked as thej' are for more than a twelvemonth, 

 are carried — are made of its bleached leaves. Occasionally neat patterns are worked 

 in by introducing portions of the material dyed black, whilst the borders of highly 

 finished mats are tastefully ornamented with the bright red feathers of the Kula — a 

 parroquet {Calliptihts solitariiis^ Latham) not found in the groups eastward of Fiji, and 

 therefore highly esteemed by the inhabitants of those islands." 



Turning to the westerly Pacific region, we find in the Solomon Ids., according 

 to Dr. Guppy," still another item in the technic of mat-making. I have not been 

 fortunate enough to see any of the Solomon mats, of which there are a number in the 

 Bishop Museum, that I could feel sure had been treated as Dr. Guppy describes; but 

 his statement is interesting as adding to the methods used in preparing the pandanus 

 leaves. He says: 



" Mat-making is one of the occupations of the women of the Straits, the material 

 employed being the thick leaves of a species o{ pandaims which is known by the natives 

 as the: pota. The leaves are first deprived of their thin polished epidermis by being 

 rubbed over with the leaves of a plant named saiis7ifi\ which have a rough surface giving 

 a sensation like that caused by fine emery paper when passed over the skin. The pan- 

 danus leaves are then dried in the sun, when they become whitened and leather}-, and 

 are then sewn together into mats." Evidently the kind of mat already described from 

 the Solomon Ids., p. 32. 



In the Gilbert Ids. we learn from the narrative of the United States Exploring 

 Expedition under Wilkes," "The mats are made of the leaves of the pandanus, slit into 

 strips about a quarter of an inch wide, and woven by hand : these are of two colours, light 

 yellow and dark brown : the former are made from the young leaves, and the latter 

 from the old, which are prepared b}- beating them with a mallet to render them pliable. 

 On the yellow mats the}' bestow a great deal more of their attention : the 30ung leaves 



"The Solomon Islands and tlicir Natives, London, 1SS7, p. 61. 



'-Narrative of the United .States Exploring Expedition during the years 1838-1842, by Charles Wilkes, U. S. N., 

 Commander of the Expedition. Philadelphia, 1845. Vol. v, p. 94. 



