DECORATIVE PATTERNS. 139 



Sunshades in the form of a peak of plaited grass bound to the 

 forehead and projecting over the eyes are occasionally worn by the 

 natives of Bougainville Straits, whilst fishing in canoes, in order to 

 protect their eyes from the sun's glare on the water. In Ugi, these 

 sunshades are sometimes worn on gala days. They did not, how- 

 ever, appear to be in constant use in any part of the group which 

 we visited. 



The comnon decorative pattern employed by the natives of the 

 islands that we visited was the chevi'on line. It is the pattern used 

 in tattooing the face in the eastern islands ; and it is represented in 

 alternating hues of red, white, and black, on the fronts of tambu- 

 houses. It is rudely cut on the outer border of the small shell 

 armlets of St. Christoval, and ornaments the cooking-pots and 

 drinking-vessels of Bougainville Straits. {See Illustration.) In 

 some of the shell armlets a continuous lozenge or diamond-shaped 

 design is produced b}" the arrangement of the chev^ron lines as 

 shown in the woodcut. The advance from this design to the dis- 

 connected lozenge pattern is then but an easy gradation. These 

 chevron lines are often curiously transformed. The Z pattern of 

 inlaid mother-of-pearl, which is shown in the illustration of the 

 canoe-god, is apparently but a broken chevron line. On the heads 

 of the Treasury spears fantastic patterns are cut out in which the 

 chevron design is adapted to the human skeleton {See illustration). 



I may here add that the bamboo boxes used for the 



betel lime are ornamented with rectilinear patterns (scratched on 

 their surfaces) which resemble those used in ornamenting the similar 

 lime boxes of New Guinea, Borneo, and Sumatra.^ The ornamental 

 dance-clubs of Bougainville Straits exactly resemble the clubs from 

 New Ireland and possess those singular distorted representations of 

 the human face which characterise New Ireland ornamentation. 



Caution is required in studying the modes of ornamentation of 

 these islanders. The remark made by the Rev. Mr. Lawes, in 

 reference to the women of the Motu tribe in New Guinea,^ that they 

 are glad to get new tattooing patterns from the printed calicoes, is 

 equally applicable to some of the Solomon Island natives. On one 

 occasion I was gravely informed by a native, as a fact likely to add 

 to their interest, that some designs I was copying had this origin. 



The Solomon Island songs, although often monotonous to the 



1 Exhibited in the British Museum Ethnological collection. 



2 Journ. Authrop. Inst. vol. VIII., p. .369. 



