Coco 1171 f Utensils. 



147 



when afflicted with furunculi. Truly the gourd was a most useful adjunct to the 

 furnishing of a native house ! The cultivation of this vegetable, once very extensive, 

 had, in the early sixties, dwindled to a few places in Puna, Hawaii, and as manj^ 

 on the southerly shores of Kauai, and is now nearly extinct on this group. The 

 Lagenaria has lasted longer than the Curcubita. 



FIG. 125. 



B C 



GOURD IMPLEMENTS. 



Coconut Utensils. — The fruit of the Coco palm has been several times referred 

 to, and we niaj' now examine some of the many uses this nut serves in the domestic 

 economy of the Hawaiian. Little was peculiar to this people for the coconut is so 

 widelj' spread through the tropics that many other races have exhausted their inge- 

 nuity in devising implements from the hard, durable shell of the coconut. Still it is 

 well to show what the Hawaiians did with this material. First, probably the nuts 

 served as water-bottles, as they still do in many parts of the Pacific, especially in the 

 southern groups where they attain a greater size than on Hawaii. There is one in 

 this Museum from Samoa that has capacity of ninet3f-two ounces or nearly three 

 quarts. Not less ancient was their use as drinking cups, and the Hawaiians made a 

 distinction between ordinary cups {apu niu) and those exclusively for the use of the 

 priests to which the name olo was given. The former were cut at right angles to the 

 vertical axis while the latter were cut parallel to this determinant: both forms are 

 shown in Fig. 126. A coconut cup was the orthodox form for awa drinking, and such 

 cups by long use gather a fine patina which is as much valued by awa experts as the 

 rich color of a meerschaum pipe by its smoker. Although coconut cups are often 



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