164 



The Ancient Haivaiian House. 



bottoms and remarkably thin walls, so that if placed in a horizontal position they at 

 once became npright and oscillated about their centre of gravity. 



Anyone who has seen an Hawaiian shape a stone poi poiinder with a simple 

 pebble as shown in the first volume of these Memoirs, page 375, and has also noted 

 the considerable variet}' of working or abrading stones shown in Plates XXXII-XXXV 

 of the same volume, will have less difficulty in understanding how the native worker 

 in wood could shape so truly and excavate so completely the bowls large and small we 



FIG. 149. UMEKE OF KOU : NOS. 9199 AND 9215. 



are now considering. Where we should saw, bore or chisel, he patiently abrades, first 

 with a rough stone, and certain varieties of the Hawaiian cellular basaltic lava had 

 great abrading power, then with stones of smoother grain itntil both the shape and 

 surface are to his satisfadlion. Time is nothing to him; seated in a cool, shad}' place 

 surrounded by his sele<5led stones and with a huewai of water and an umeke of poi, his 

 workshop was complete. He would busily work until hungry, then a little poi and 

 some water to prevent, as Malo says, its sticking in his throat, and then another pull 

 at his umeke until he is weary and needs a rest, and so var3'ing his occupation the 

 easy going time at last brings an end to his particular work. So little does he like 

 the monotony of any one job that he generally has several on hand, pecking a little 



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