Coconut Bottles. 



151 



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The Solomon Islanders had no bottle gourds and thej' supplied the want by an 

 ingenious use of the coconut in which the material was completely disguised by coat- 

 ing the nut with a gum (Parinarmjiif)^ which cemented to a hole on the top a joint 

 of bambu which was also coated with the same material. The result resembled 

 pottery, and the nut portion was decorated with imbedded shells or beads forming 

 patterns of great variet}'. Fig. 133 shows several of these bottles. 



On the Micronesian groups, where coconuts are abundant and fresh water 

 scarce, the nuts are used extensively for carrying and preserving water. The natural 

 nut is cleaned out, the "eye" enlarged and plugged with a pandaniis leaf tightly folded 



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FIG. 130. SOLOMON ISLANDS CUP. 



for a stopple and with the attachment of two cords of coconut fibre, the bottle is 

 complete. Two are usuall}- on the same cord, as shown in Fig. 132, for convenience 

 of carrying. Other groups use the same contrivance, and I have found it on Samoa, 

 Fiji and almost identical in Singapore, Akyab and western India. 



After the introduction of tobacco a small coconut shell became the favorite tobacco 

 box {hano haka). A series of these in the Museum colleAion is shown in Fig. 134. 

 The cups formed of the lower end of these long slender nuts were much in demand for 

 mixing fish bait, while precisely the same thing was used in the Caroline Islands for 

 moulding the cakes of red paint called taik. We must not forget that these nuts had 

 part in the amusements of the Hawaiians, both as rattles {ttliuli Jiula., Fig. 125, d) pre- 

 cisel}^ as the small gourds were used, and as drums to be bound to the arms i^puniu 

 hula), but of these a more complete description belongs to the chapter on Amusements. 



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