ADDITIONS TO ETHNOLOGICAL COLLECTIONS ETHERIDGE. 197 



The basalt missile said to have been found on Erromanga 

 was possibly taken there from Tanna, but the locality is open 

 to doubt. 



V.—" Slaying " Stone. 



A cylindrical, or perhaps even an obtusely quadrangular 

 stone (PI. xxxviii., fig. 4), three feet one inch long, with an 

 average circumference of thirteen and a half inches, but at 

 one end tapering to nine inches girth ; it is blunt at both 

 ends, and weighs forty-five pounds. It is, like the stone 

 missiles, also of olivine basalt. 



1 do not think this is a converted stone ; it has every 

 appearance of natural wear and tear, it' shaped it must have 

 been at the expense of enormous labour. On grasping with 

 the hands a distinct quadrangular section becomes appreciable, 

 whilst a quadrangular appearance is imparted by four pro- 

 nounced longitudinal grooves, or valleys, extending the entire 

 length of the stone. 



This interesting object was, as in the case of one of the 

 basalt missiles, presented by Mr. W. H. Truss, and is also 

 from Gwin-ap Village, Central Tanna. 



Mr. Truss supplied me with the following information : — 

 The stone was known as " 7nul-a-mal,'^ and kept in the village 

 as a means of despatching a victim. The latter was some- 

 times seized and held, when the man told off as executioner 

 would raise it above his own head and crash in the skull of 

 the victim by simply allowing it to fall by its own weight, 

 and this was performed openly or secretively ; the victim was 

 always eaten. 



The age of the stone was unknown, but it was credited with 

 having been the instrument of death of many people. 



VI. — Mallicollan Pottery. 



The Rev. F. J. Paton, who was stationed on Mallicolo, 

 forwarded to the Austialian Museum a number of fragments 

 of pottery, in fact potsherds, from that island. The donor 

 informed me that the pieces were dug up in yam gardens or 

 old village rubbish heaps. " Perhaps it has not been made 



