40 Mdl mid Basket Weaving. 



and no one would step over sneli a thing, supposing the god might be in it. Hence, 

 also, if, in going to fight, they fell in with a newly plaited coconut leaf basket turned 

 upside down it was a bad omen, and sent them back. If, however, the basket was an 

 old one, and not lying across the road, but to the one side, and 'fore and aft', it was a 

 good sign and encouraged them to proceed." 



To continue our quotations from the same author (p. 120) in regard to their 

 mats, of which the technic has been recorded more fully, perhaps, than that of any 

 other islanders, he says: "Their fine mats were, and are still, considered their most 

 valuable clothing. These mats are made of the leaves of a species of pandanus scraped 

 clean and thin as writing paper, and slit into strips about the sixteenth part of an inch 

 wide. They are made b\- the women ; and, when completed, are from two to three 

 yards square. They are of a straw and cream colour, are fringed, and, in some in- 

 stances, ornamented with small scarlet feathers in.serted here and there. These mats 

 are thin, and almost as flexible as a piece of calico. Few of the women can make them, 

 and many months — yea, years, are sometimes spent over the making of a single mat. 

 These fine mats are considered their most valuable property, and form a sort of cur- 

 rency which they give and receive in exchange. They value them at from two to forty 

 shillings each. They are preserved with great care; .some of them pass through 

 several generations, and as their age and historic interest increase, the}- are all the 

 more valued." Similar mats iised as garments M-e .shall find were made on the 

 Hawaiian group, biit of grass rather than pandanus leaf. A portion of one belonging 

 to Kamehameha the Great is shown in Fig. 82, and though more than a centurj- old 

 is still flexible. 



Another Samoan missionary, the Reverend John B. Stein, in speaking of 

 Samoan mats tells us:'* "Of these the most valued were the ic taiia^ and they might 

 well be prized, since they often occupied five, six, nine and even twelve months in their 

 making. They were made from the lati ii\ a large plant whose leaves closely resemble 

 •those of the pandanus, but are larger. When plucked the prickly edges of the leaves 

 were cut off with a shell, and the leaves then rolled up and baked in a native oven. 

 This prepared them for a second process, which consisted of separating the inner or 

 finer part of the leaf from the outer, the latter being laid aside for a coarser kind of 

 mat .... The finer portions of the leaf were then strung together, fastened to a bam- 

 boo pole and placed in the sea, where they were allowed to remain until bleached, a 

 process usually occupying from five to seven days, when they were rinsed in fresh 

 water and placed in the sun to be further bleached, after which, when thoroughly dry, 

 they were cut into little strips of various lengths and widths, according to the fineness 

 of the plait required. 



°01d Samoa, London, 1897, p. 144. 



