Light ill the Darkness. 



131 



number of these strings with dry banana leaves into a cj-linder some six inches in 

 diameter, and from two to four feet long. This laniaku produced a bright light, con- 

 venient for a night-time dance or revel, but it gave out too much smoke to be tolerated 

 in the ill-ventilated houses, although the glow was pleasant through the open door. 

 The usual evening light for the interior was the stone lamp fed with kukui oil and 

 supplied with one or more wicks of twisted strip of kapa, or with the older and simpler 

 candle of these same nuts first roasted and shelled and then strung as in the torch but 

 in shorter lengths. Such candles it was the duty of the j-ounger members of the 

 famil}^ to care for, and the^^ were "snuffed" by inverting the candle until the next nut 



FIG. 106. KUKUINUT CANDLES. 



was alight and then knocking off the embers of the spent nut. The odor was strong, 

 resembling that of roasting peanuts, and care had to be taken that the half extin- 

 guished coal did not set the mat carpet afire. As shown in Fig. 106 the same stone 

 lamp that held the oil could also be used for candlestick for the nut candles. 



The lamps were of many forms, not very portable but durable bej'ond most 

 modern lamps. Their forms are shown in Fig. 107 and others are described in the 

 already published account of Hawaiian Stone Implements."'* The oil was ground out 

 of the nuts in stone mortars many of which are figured in the same work (p. 366), and 

 all important houses had one or more of these, as the oil was home-made. Fig. 108 

 shows a common form of mortar, but some were of considerable size and good work- 

 manship. Usually the stone pestles were neither so large nor so neatl}' finished as 

 those of the Amerind, but then the latter had greater use for the implement in grind- 



'^ Memoirs of B. B. Bishop Museum, vol. i, pt. 4, p. 391. 



L315] 



