Hawaiian Curved Adzes. 
By WILLIAM T. BRIGHAM. 
Ir has long been a puzzle to me how the ancient Hawaiians 
cut the bottom of their canoes on the inside so evenly curved: it 
seems possible only on the supposition that polishing stones were 
used to grind down the irregular cut of the common adze which 
seldom has a face of more than two inches in width. In the 
extensive collection of stone adzes in this Museum there is not one 
that a modern carpenter would have selected for cutting a canoe 
bottom. I had seen the old-time canoe makers wield the clumsy 
looking stone adze (after cutting the rough work with a foreign 
steel adze) with a skill and certainty difficult to acquire, leaving 
the outside of the canoe with a fairly smooth surface, but I never 
happened to meet one working on the inside, which was generally 
left to the last. 
Anyone who has seen the procedure of bailing out a genuine 
native canoe with a fragment of gourd umeke will understand the 
importance of a smooth, evenly curved bottom. It was gratifying 
to find at last a tool capable of doing what seemed needed in 
fashioning such a bottom. During the past year Mr. William 
Wagener has brought to my notice an adze found by him in 
Hamakua, Hawaii. To him it was a rare form, as he had seen 
only one other, and he deposited it in this Museum for study and 
casting. As will be seen in Fig. 1, the shank has been broken 
(recently) and there are a few nicks in the cutting edge, but the 
finish is careful and complete. If we allow for the broken shank 
its weight would exceed 4.5 lbs. Its peculiarity consists in the 
double curve of its cutting edge which is beautifully regular. 
The stone is dark-blue phonolite with a brown oxydized surface. 
Weight 3 lbs. 9 0oz.; breadth 5.7 in.; length 8.2 in. (10.2 when 
entire?); thickness 2in. (Figs. 1 and 2.) 
[255] (31) 
