Hawaiian Mirror: 



187 



Ipu Mimi. — When the spittoon was of larger size, but of the same general 

 form as the ipii kiiha it received the discharges from the distal end of the alimentary 

 canal or from the bladder, and being made of so porous a substance as wood, it 

 was important to cleanse it thoroughly' and to expose it to the full sunlight: this 

 custom has been faithful!}' continued with the crockerj' successor to the wooden 

 ipu mimi, as maj- be noticed by the traveler at almost any native house in the 

 countr}'. Specimens of these vessels are shown in Plate XXXII, at the bottom. 

 Fortunatel}' most of these necessary but unpleasant containers were destroyed on 

 the advent of the cheaper foreign crockerj- pots, and specimens are rarelj- if ever 

 found in museums. 



I do not believe this to have been an ancient implement, nor was it used b}- the 

 common people, who were very careless about the natural excretions of the bod}-: their 

 Iiale /v'i9;/^7 = priv3', I do not believe existed before the contact with white men, and the 

 term was probably made up to use in the translation of the Scriptures. Kio means 

 excrement and kioua the fundament." 



IPU MIMI IN THE BISHOP MUSEUM. 



Diameter. Height. 



Diameter. Heislit. 



9.2 



8 



7 

 9-5 



6 



3-7 



4 



2.6 



Mirrors. — I have elsewhere"'* described the Hawaiian stone mirrors {kilo pohakif) 

 as one of the most ingenious of savage contrivances. Malo mentions also a wooden 

 mirror, but I have never seen one nor do I know of an}- that have survived in museums. 

 With the importation of the far more efficient coated-glass mirror these native reflec- 

 tors soon vanished; the wooden ones utterlv, while those of stone were used as a cooling 

 application to furunculi or other inflamed portions of the bod}-, — the}- became pohakii 

 lapaan in the armamcntariuvi chintgiaim of the Hawaiian kahuna lapaau or medicine 

 man, and then usually had a small hole drilled near the outer edge for a suspending 

 cord. These mirrors of stone disks, and doubtless the wooden ones likewise, had no 

 refledling surface when dry, and were not used, as Malo states, by merely wetting the 



"In the early sixties I heard in the Haili church at Hilo a capital sermon in Hawaiian the text being from 

 Deut. 23, 13. It was brought home to the simple Hawaiians b)' the suggestion "Consider poor pussy", and from my 

 observations at that time, I do not doubt the congregation needed the practical sermon of the excellent missionarj-. 



^* Stone Implements and Stone Work of the Ancient Hawaiians. Memoirs of the Museum, vol. i, p. 398. 



[371] 



