86 



Mat and Basket Weaving. 



One of the fine spears in the Solomons colleAion has twenty-four bands of woven 

 red and yellow covering, separated by plain circumferential bands and exhibiting per- 

 haps six or seven different designs. An implement called a "chief's wand or sceptre" 

 has ten of such woven bands. The weaving on the clubs of lenticular sedlion is very 

 exact and tense or it would soon get loose on the tapering bodj', unless, as sometimes 

 seems to be the case, it is 

 cemented on. Spears with 

 carved head inlaid with 

 pearl shell often have a 

 narrow band of this finely 

 woven covering. 



Bambu Work. — We 



may now return to Ha- 

 waiian matters. Modern 

 fans are often made of 

 split bambu which affords 

 thin laminae separating 

 much as does the paper 

 birch bark of our north- 

 ern regions. These 

 strips, of varying width 

 and length according to 

 the use intended, are very 

 beautiful and the fans 

 made from them (which fig. S6. baskets from northern Australia. 



are perhaps much" less beautiful than the bambu strips of which they are constructed) 

 are shown in Plate XV, where Nos. 19, 22-24, in the lower part of the plate, are of this 

 material. The brilliant white is often contrasted with the oiiter skin of the black 

 banana. A golden brown fern stem is also used in these fans for color effedls. The 

 banana is shown in No. 19, and the fern in No. 7. 



Sugar Cane. — An uncommon but very beautiful material for braids used in 

 hat making is found in the sugar cane. This grass was found on these islands by the 

 early voyagers, but so far as I am aware its use in basketry is modern. The strips 

 are very glossy and become, by age or exposure to the sun, a golden brown. Cane 

 leaves have long been used for thatching the native houses, but are less easily worked 

 and much less durable than the common pili grass. 



