192 



The Ancient Haivaiian House. 



Probably its use was confined to "rats and mice and sncli small deer", but it was prob- 

 abl}' to be found in most respectable houses. 



Kahili = Brooms. — Another necessary thing in every house, whether the hut 

 of the niakaainana or the large house of the Alii, was a kahili or broom, which is also 

 shown in the same figure. This was in no way like the splendid ornament of feathers 

 which bears the same name and has been described and figiired in the first volume of 

 these Memoirs, but was simple in the extreme, and its simplicity doubtless suggested 

 its use wherever the coco palm grows. A handful of the dried midribs of the leaflets 



FIG. 177. HAW.VIIAN BOW AND ARROW AND BROOM. 



of the coco palm leaf, either held loosel}- or tied together at the base (as was most 

 common in Micronesia), made a practical broom convenient enough when the user 

 could sc|uat as the Pacific islanders do, the kahili being held almost horizontally. 

 An old woman sweeping a garden path in this way always attracted the attention of a 

 stranger. The remaining object in the figure is a small wooden hook to be fastened 

 to the aho within the house : on this the koko holding umeke or huewai coiild be sus- 

 pended, or indeed anything else hung up out of the way. 



Noho or Stool. — Although the Hawaiians used neither stools nor chairs for rest- 

 ing but preferred the matted floor where they could recline at ease,'*' the chiefs on occasions 

 of ceremony sat on low stools. These were carved from a single block {vionoxy/on) and 



"' I have seen an aged Hawaiian woman, tviilently very uncomfortable on her pew seat at church, graduaUy 

 slide down to the floor where her satisfied look proclaimed her greater comfort. 



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