THE HAWAIIAN PEOPLE. 75 



gouges, chisels, and the like can easily be recognized. Among their implements 

 they had sharpening stones made of hard phonolite, which were used to give an 

 edge to their tools, or as polishing stones. Some of these were boulders and 

 were permanently located, while others were smaller and could be taken about 

 as rquired. The sawj-like teeth of the shark were used as tools in many ways, 

 where cutting, scraping, and sawing edges were required. One of the most 

 curious of their tools was the rotary or pump drill. The staff, tipped with a 

 slender piece of hard lava or a Terebra shell, was fitted with a crude fly-wheel 

 and a bow-like device, which caused it to spin back and forth. This simple 

 device was convenient for boring the innumerable holes required to accom- 

 modate the cord that, for want of nails, was used in fastening all kinds 

 of objects together. Hand stones for hammers, stone files for making fish 

 hooks of bone, scrapers of bone and shell, stones for smoothing, fine pumice, 

 coral grit and other fine materials for polishing, were all tools commonly found 

 in an ai-tisan's kit. The oo or digger, a long staff of hard wood, was almost 

 the only tool of husbandry, while in net manufacture the simple and widely 

 used seine needle and mesh gage were practically the only tools employed. 



As we think of the endless variety of tools necessary to perform even the 

 most ordinary task in our own more complex civilization, it seems incredible 

 that the patient Hawaiian, with such exceedingly simple tools at his command, 

 coiild have utilized the materials of his environment to such splendid purpose. 

 The wonder of their achievement grows when we contemplate not only the 

 variety and amount of their handicraft, but the neat and substantial character 

 of their work — a trait for which the ancient Hawaiians are .justly famed. 



Ornaments of Feathers. 



Ornaments wrought from the feathers of birds were among their most 

 valuable possessions. Among their handicraft, especially such as had to do 

 with adornment, nothing made by them surpassed in elegance their feather 

 capes, helmets, cloaks, leis, kahilis, and feather pa 'us or dresses. So handsome 

 were they that their possession was almost entirely limited to the alii or per- 

 sons of rank, or those of special distinction. 



The most valuable of all were the feather cloaks or robes of state, which 

 were indeed priceless insignia of rank. The most valuable were made en- 

 tirely of the rich, golden-yellow feathers of the very rare and now extinct 

 native mamo. A robe in the Bishop Museum that was the property of Kame- 

 hameha I, is composed almost entirely of the feathers of the mamo, and con- 

 stitutes one of the Museum's chief treasures. As the arrangement of the cloak 

 was alwaj'S such that additions could be made from time to time, it is not to be 

 wondered that this beautiful robe of state, which occupied over one hundred 

 years i in making, should be valued at as high a figure as a million dollars, 

 when the amount of labor involved in the gathering of the raw material from 

 which it was made is taken into account. As a sub.stitute for the rarer golden- 

 yellow mamo feathers, certain iimre common yellow feathers from the now 



1 Nine generations. 



