Vegetable Crockery. 137 



Gourds as Containers. — No Hawaiian laid up food for future use : he had 

 not acquired the domestic economy of the Marquesan or the Kusaien who prepare food 

 from the breadfruit or the pandanus during the seasons of plenty for the needs of other 

 times. He had, however, to prepare his poi some time before a fermentation made it 

 palatable, hence a number of containers were needed, and in most families there was a 



a never-failing supply of this 

 national bread. Containers 

 were needed, and the earliest, 

 ^ probably were the gourd 

 shells, ipu of the natives, since 

 this name has attached to 

 vessels made for many gener- 

 ations of wood, as we shall see 

 later, and even to the stone 

 c lamps (/)!>// /?'//>('«/). The large 

 gourd {Curcubita viaxiDia), 

 u ip/i iiiii of the natives, was 

 found on this groiip at the 

 time of Cook's visit, although 

 K unknown to other Polj'ue- 

 sians, and of unknown deriva- 

 tion. Its huge fruits are 

 F . . . 



sometimes several feet in di- 

 ameter, the rind thin and 

 G strong, and serve not only for 

 bowls and dishes, but also for 

 traveling trunks (Fig. 114), 

 for which purpose they were 

 well adapted by their tough- 

 ness, lightness and impermeability to rain. Slung in the network koko from the auamo 

 on the shoulder of a stout, active Hawaiian they have often accompanied the writer on 

 mountain trails, one of the pair containing food, the other a change of raiment, while 

 the bottle gourd in the middle carried water, often so hard to find good in mountain 

 climbing on Hawaii. 



As these gourds were on the islands or brought by the early immigrants, they 

 were perhaps the first material at hand for containers, and they were certainly used 

 widely and in many ways. The}^ were alwa3's what took the place of crockery with 



[321I 



FIG. 113. ENDS OF HAWAIIAN .\UAMO IN THE BISHOP MUSEUM. 



