Notes on Ethnographical Accessions. 



Bv John F. G. Stokes. 



SOME HAWAIIAN SHREDDERS AND SCRAPERS. 



When we view the apparently complete Hawaiian collections 

 in the Bishop Museum, it may be difficult for us to realize that 

 some of the implements, which must have been most common, are 

 now among the rarest. This remark would apply more particu- 

 larly to specimens of less permanent nature than stone. As 

 examples, might be quoted, the bambu knife and the file of coral; 

 neither of them was in our collections until found on Kahoolawe 

 in 1913. Such tools, simple in their structure though effective 

 enough for their purpose in the hands of their users, were from the 

 nature of their material the first to give way before the imported 

 metal implements, and, not being of interest as curios, have been 

 easily forgotten. 



Another such implement was the early form of the iva'ti niu, 

 coconut-shredder, used for preparing /(-?</(?/(? (the Hawaiian dessert 

 made by cooking together shredded taro and coconut meat, sweet- 

 ened with milk from the unripe coconut). The first example of 

 this early form, to come to our knowledge, was one ploughed up 

 in 1915 at Hauula, Oahu, 1000 feet from the sea, by an employee 

 of Mr. Edgar Henriques, and loaned to the Museum for casting. 

 L 925, Fig. I. It was a wedge-shaped section of a cone shell 

 (probably Conus qiiercinus) serrated on the interior apical margin. 

 In 1916, Mr. A. L. C. Atkinson found two more, of the same ma- 

 terial, on the beach at Kihei, Maui. L, 969 and L 970, Fig. i. 



The specimens found were shown to several middle-aged or 

 elderly Hawaiians at various times, and it is interesting to note 

 that all but one of them failed to recognize the shredders until the 

 indented edges were pointed out, and then the use was at once 

 described. The one referred to was John Penchula, from Kau, 

 Hawaii, now a janitor in the Museum, who remembered seeing 

 his father using such an implement. For use the shredder was 

 bound, teeth upward, to a straight stick which rested on a stone 

 and the ground, with the shredder projecting over a dish, and was 



[229] (37) 



