234 BULLETIN 139^ UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



of the saucer rim. The Moros also use a small brass pot as a float 

 lamp, which was evidently introduced with Mohammedanism. 



In Luzon hanging lamps consisting of a bamboo frame attached to 

 a bamboo cup on which is set a shallow earthenware saucer are in 

 common use. In the middle of the crossbar of the frame is a hook 

 for hanging the lamp. This lamp is evidently of Chinese origin. A 

 long-spout lamp of terra cotta, well designed and finished, is made in 

 Luzon. Somewhat smaller earthen lamps of this type are used in 

 the odd fishing lanterns by the natives of the coast. 



POLYNESIA 



Lamps occur rarely among the Polynesian Islands, and it is an 

 open question whether any of the specimens are native. The New 

 Zealand natives used a stone cup lamp like those of Hawaii excavated in 

 broken poi pounders. Concerning Tahiti Admiral Wilkes says: 

 " The lamps, which are always kept burning in their houses at night, 

 are made from the shell of a coconut. The wick is formed of wild 

 cotton and is kept upright in the center of the bowl by two elastic 

 strips of coconut leaf crossing each other at right angles." Wilkes 

 also saw similar lamps in use in Samoa. ^^ 



Numerous stone lamps have been collected in Hawaii. They are 

 cup shape and hourglass shape, of hard stone. Many are made 

 from broken pestles and some are of wood. The collection of the 

 Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum at Honolulu has a number of these 

 lamps. ^^ A remarkable specimen is figured by Edge-Partington and 

 Charles Heape in their catalogue. It is described as a sorcery lamp 

 of scoriaceous stone used at merais or temples. It is 15 inches high. 

 The base is to represent five joined legs, the body of the lamp is a 

 plain drum, and above is an arched handle with three pits on top. 

 It would seem that the carver worked with the design of some 

 wooden object in mind. If this is really a lamp it is doubtless 

 indigenous. The specimen is in the British Museum. 



AMERICA 



The ethnography of the lamp in the Western Hemisphere is con- 

 fined to the Eskimo, who were the only aborigines in this division of 

 the world who possessed a lamp. In the coast fringe from Greenland 

 to the Aleutians there are two types of lamp, the chief being the stone 

 lamp with more or less extended wick edge, and the pottery saucer 

 lamp of the southern Bering Strait area. The first-mentioned type 

 is peculiar in having a wick of powdered moss. The Eskimo lamp 

 has been monographed.^^ 



» Wilkes Expedition, vol. 2, pp. 54, 157. 

 «*W. T. Brigham. Catalogue of the Bishop Museum, p. 36. 



» Walter Hough. The Lamp of the Eskimo, Ann. Kept., U. S. Nat. Mus., 1896; also The Origin 

 and Range of the Eskimo Lamp, Amer. Anthrop., April, 1898, pp. 116-122. 



