134 PERSONAL ORNAMENTS. 



however, sometimes wear in this aperture a tusk-like ornament, 

 1| to 2 inches long, whieh is made from the shell of the giant clam. 

 Occasionally I have observed clay pipes carried in this perforation 

 in the nasal septum. Here, also, the lobes of the ears are pierced by 

 large holes, and in the older men they hang in loops 2 to 3 inches in 

 length. 



The men of Sirabo (Narovo Island) streak their countenances 

 with lime, whilst the boys of Treasury Islands sometimes paint 

 their faces around the eyes with the red ochreous earth that they 

 employ for staining the hair. The young lads of Faro occasionally 

 adorn their faces with silvery strips of a fish's swimming-bladder 

 which they plaster on their cheeks. 



In the matter of personal decoration I should observe that the 

 men usually wear the plumes, not that the women dislike decora- 

 tions, but because they do not often have the opportunity of wearing 

 them. If a trade necklace or some similar ornament is given to a 

 woman, it will very soon be observed adorning the person of her 

 husband. An incident of this sort particularly annoyed me on one 

 occasion in the island of St, Ghristoval ; but I might as well have 

 tried to persuade a pig that it was a glutton as have attempted to 

 convince a native that such a transaction was ungallant. In some 

 islands it is the custom for the husband on the occasion of a festival 

 to load his favourite wife with all his worldly wealth in the form of 

 the native bead money ; and, as at Santa Anna, the wives of the 

 headmen parade about the village thus heavily attired and presenting 

 such a picture of " portable property " as would have gladdened the 

 heart of Mr. Wemmick himself. This shell-money, to which I have 

 frequently referred in this work, and which is so often employed in 

 personal decoration, consists of small pieces of shells of different 

 colours shaped and strung together like beads. In the eastern 

 islands, this money is largely derived from the natives of Malaita. 

 Six fathoms of it are said to be sufficient for the purchase of a pig. 

 The same kind of money is used by the inhabitants of the Admiralty 

 Islands, New Ireland, New Guinea, and the New Hebrides. In the 

 last two localities it is worked into armlets.^ 



The men of the Solomon Islands are very fond of placing in their 

 hair a briglitly-coloured flower such as tliat of Hibiscus tiiiaceVyS, or 

 a pretty sprig, or the frond of a fern. My native companions in my 



' The natives of the Solomon Islands also occasionally employ as money the teeth of fisli, 

 porpoises, fruit-eating bats (Pteropidm), auJ of other animals. 



