202 RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



Prof. Macmillan Brown examined the adze-lieads in the 

 Dominion Museum and wrote me as follows'^": — "There is 

 the model or copy of a small one of the same type from tlie 

 Chatham Islands with the same two nipples as on the speci- 

 men from Nassau. I may say that the Morioris of these 

 islands have many things that differentiate them from the 

 Maoris. They have wash-tlirough canoes (waka-patu) for 

 fishing ; tliey sit with face to stern as in rowing. They 

 have in their phonology the consonant cli, which aj)pears in 

 no other Polynesian dialect except Tongan. I have always 

 thought they came from a group different from the Maoris. 

 Their walca-patu remind me of the balsas, or hoyant rafts, of 

 the Peruvian coast. On Lake Titicaca I saw canoes made of 

 reeds of much the same type {i.e., wash-through) as the 

 Moriori, and their attitude in propelling stands alone in 

 Oceania, except in New Caledonia, where they had double 

 canoe rafts with holes in the decking through which they 

 punted their craft." 



The occurrence of these lashing holders, or stops, on adzes 

 found so far apart as the Chatham Islands and Nassau is both 

 interesting and remai'kable. The subject will, I hope, pi'o- 

 vide Prof. J. M. Brown with further matter for consideration 

 in his well-known Pacific studies. 



The evidence of " lost arts " throughout the South Pacific 

 is slowly but gi'aduall}' increasing. For instance, leaving out 

 of consideration megalithic and Cyclopean structures, we 

 have the stone implements and figures found in the auriferous 

 alluvium of the Yodda Valle}' Goldfield,-''^ and Hie unknown 

 pottery at Rainu, already mentioned, both localities in Eastern 

 New Guinea. It will be remembered that these Rainu pots- 

 herds are accompanied by incised shells,^'' but the " art of 

 carving on hard shell is not now practised. "^^ Travelling in 

 a south-easterly direction we encounter the stone dishes and 



:'•' Letter dated 3rd November, 1915. 



s!* Etheridge — Rec. Austr. Mas., vii., 1, 1908, p. 24, pis. vi.-vii. 



39 Poch — Mittl. Anthrop. Gesellsch. Wien., xxxvii., 1907, pp. 67-71, 

 figs. 7 and 8 ; Etheridge — Loc. cit., p. 27. 



•to Monckton— Brit. New Guinea Ann. Report, year 30th June, 1904. — 

 Commonwealth Pari. Papers, 1905, No. 1, C. 700, p. 31, 4th plate. 



