76 POLISHED STONP] IMPLEMENTS. 



The boys of Treasury sometimes amuse themselves with a game of 

 the same character, when they use as their weapons the stalk and 

 bulb of the large taro. I was on one occasion much surprised at 

 their skill in aiming apparently at one boy and hitting the one next 

 to him. 



The polished stone implements of their fathers have been to a 

 Jaro-e extent discarded bv the natives of the coasts : but the natives 

 of the interiors of the large islands, such as Bougainville, who may 

 have been rarely, if ever, in communication with the trader, are said 

 to be still in a large degree dependent on their stone axes and adzes. 

 On account of the extensive introduction of trade axes, adzes, and 

 knives, it was often difficult to obtain the polished stone implements 

 from the people of a coast village, and natives were wont to express 

 their surprise at my wanting such inefficient and old-fashioned tools. 

 My inquiries as to when these stone implements were used usually 

 received some such reply as the following : " Father, belong father, 

 belong me, he all same " — the purport of which was that the}'" were 

 in use a long time ago, the native's grandfather being deemed a 

 person of so high antiquity, that in referring to past events he 

 seldom cares to go beyond. These stone axes and adzes are generally 

 made of the hard volcanic rocks of this region. A few are fashioned 

 out of the thick portion of the shell of Tridacna gigas. 



The upper surface of a large mushroom-coral (Fimgidcs), serves 

 as an effective rasp for scraping canoes ; and the large shell of a 

 Cyrena and the sharper edge of a boar's tusk are similarly used for 

 scraping spears and bows, which are ultimately rubbed smooth with 

 powdered pumice. 



The " bow-drill," armed with a steel point, was employed by 

 Mule, the Treasury chief, in piercing the holes for the rattan-like 

 thongs in the planks of his canoes. This was the only " bow-drill" 

 that came under my notice, and I could not tempt its owner to part 

 with it. In the British Museum Collection, however, there are two 

 smaller tools of this kind from other islands of the group. Without 

 describing it, I may remark that a similar " bow-drill" is figured in 

 Commodore Wilkes' account of the Bowditch Islanders,^ by Dr. G. 

 Turner^ in his account of the Samoans, and by Signer D'Albertis in 

 his book on New Guinea.^ The history of the "bow-drill," as we 



1 " ISTarr. U.S. Expl. Exped.," vol. v., ]). 17. 

 • '- "Nintecn years in Polynesia," p. 273. 

 3 Vol. ii., p. 378. 



