Gourds Broken and Repaired. 



139 



the poorer folk, and with these they hold the same place today in the country regions. 

 If the immigrants brought the seeds of this vegetable, as well as the coconut, with 

 them their canoes must have had the capacity for freight that is fabulously imputed 

 to the Mayflower. In the case of the gourd, while not emulating Jonah's, only a few 

 months would be required to renew the supply, while the coconut, the onl}' other source 

 of containers, cups or bottles, woiild require twelve to fourteen 3'ears before fruiting: 

 the latter vegetable pottery tliej- used to an extent second only to the gourd. 



FIG. 116. MENDED IPU. 



Besides the large Curcubita the Hawaiians had also the bottle-gourd i^Lage- 

 nari'a z'n/garis), a vine found over a much wider territorj' than its larger relative, and 

 with the two they were not meanly provided with vessels for containing food and drink. 

 Easy to prepare, the ipu were fragile, and we find them neatly repaired with great 

 pains, when broken, for the threads of olona which were to bind the fragments together 

 must be twisted on the thigh in the Polynesian wa}^,^' for they had no spindle, a refine- 

 ment that the dwellers in the palafittes in the Swiss and Italian lakes had used sixty 

 centuries before. Then holes for the thread must be drilled in the easily penetrated 

 substance, and for this the}' had the pump drill which is found all over the Pacific 

 islands, in Papuan as well as Polynesian groups. We have seen its use in the coarser 

 work of door framing, and we have in Fig. 116 two specimens of neat work on the more 



"' See an illustration of this on p. 51, Vol. I, Memoirs of this Museum. 



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