Chap, xvii.] WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS. 383 



The bowstring is a thick flat band of rattan, and the arrows, 

 like all New Guinea arrows, have no notch, but are flat at the 

 ends, and are also without feather. The natives have never 

 learnt the improvement of the notch and feather. The men 

 of Api Island, New Hebrides, have most carefully worked 

 notches to their arrows, but still no feather. The Aru 

 Islanders have both notch and feather.* 



The Humboldt Bay arrows further are excessively long, far 

 too long for the bows, being five feet in length, so that not 

 more than half of their length can be drawn. They are small 

 spears thrown by a clumsy bow for short distances rather than 

 arrows. They go with immense force for a certain distance, but 

 only fly straight for ten or a dozen yards, wobbling and turning 

 over after that length of flight. 



As the anchor was being got up, when the ship's screw was 

 beginning to turn, two natives, who happened to be close to 

 it in a canoe, drew their bows hastily on it as if it were some 

 monster about to attack them from under water. 



In the Humboldt Bay stone choppers, the stone blade is 

 mounted in the end of a long wooden socket piece which is 

 fitted into a round hole at the end of the club-like handle. 

 The socket piece can thus be turned round so that the blade 

 can be set to be used like that of either an axe or an adze. 



The handle and socket piece form nearly a right angle with 

 one another, and the latter is so long that the whole seems 

 a most clumsy arrangement, and it is most difficult to strike 

 a blow with it with any precision. 



The shorter the socket piece the easier it is to direct the 

 blade with certainty in a blow. In Polynesia generally the 

 stone blades are thus fixed close up to the ends of the handles, 

 but in New Guinea this curious long-legged angular handle is 

 in vogue. It is difficult to understand the reason, unless these 

 natives began with a chisel and mallet ; and having got so far 

 in improvement as to join them together, have not yet dis- 

 covered the advantage to be gained by shortening up the 

 socket piece. 



A curious stone implement, similarly mounted to the chopper, 

 was common in most of the Humboldt Bay canoes. It seems 

 to be a kind of hammer. The stone head is cylindrical in 

 form, tapering to fit the socket at one end, and hollowed 

 slightly on the striking face. The exact use of the implement 

 is uncertain. The awkwardness of its method of mounting 

 is at once felt on trying to drive a nail with it. 



* For the distribution and various forms of bows and arrows, see Gen. 

 Lane Fox, F.R.S., etc., "On Primitive Warfare." Journ. of United 

 Service Inst., 1867-9. 



