Music front Gourds. 



141 



preferred. I do not know how the thick shelled varieties were produced, but the sub- 

 stance between the inner and outer skins is fairly dense, perhaps more so than in the 

 thin varieties, which are often eaten b}' white ants which destroy nearly the whole 



median tissue. 



Long thin varieties of this Curcubita were also used for storage of the feather 



capes and leis, and were sometimes so curved that they could be hung over a beam or 



rafter. Two of these long boxes, 

 now in this Museum, are shown 

 on Fig. 118. Gourds that were 

 in form and size between the large 

 bowls and these long boxes were 

 in demand for hula drums (Fig. 

 119), and few houses of the alii 

 were not provided with some of 

 these popular instruments for beat- 

 ing time for the hula dance. 



From the bottle -gourds were 

 made, besides the bottles, an end- 

 less variety of conveniences, some 

 of which were so common as to 

 demand notice, while others were 

 local and trivial and may be 

 passed by. But the bottles them- 

 selves varied greatly: there were 

 the almost globular ones with a 

 very short neck, handy on a jour- 

 ney; the long necked ones for 

 household use, and the hour-glass 

 shaped ones which were easily carried by a cord passed around the constridlion, while 

 the others had to be provided with a net or sling. The fishermen's liuewai were long 

 and almost without necks, that they might be laid on the bottom of the canoes out of 

 the way. These are shown in Fig. 120. An unique form has been shown in a previous 

 part of the Museum Memoirs,'" in which compression had been applied to the growing 

 gourd by means of a net, and the bulbous portion, to which alone the pressure was 

 applied, was forced into round protuberances which, as may be seen by referring to 

 the figure, were decided!}- ornamental. 



"Old Hawaiian Carvings found in a Cave on the Island of Hawaii. Memoirs II, No. 2. The gourd bottle is 

 figured on p. 17(170) and here reproduced, Fig. 121. ['12 ^ I 



FIG. 119. GOURD HULA DRUMS. 



