44 Director's Report for 1916. 
viously illustrated.‘ The rings would thus add a slightly greater 
degree of refinement. They have apparently been made by peck- 
ing, and have not been subsequently smoothed, as was the origi- 
nal surface of the exterior. The stone is a basalt, of a degree of 
fineness similar to that in the other cylindrical mortars. The speci- 
men is 200 mm. high, 223 in diameter at the base. ‘The cavity is 
143 mm. deep, 123 in diameter at the mouth, and 127 a quarter of 
the way down, and converges at the bottom. A cross section is 
shown in Fig. 5. 
AN HAWAIIAN SLING. 
The sling was always considered an effective arm in Hawaiian 
warfare, and the great care with which the sling-stones were 
made? would seem to bear this out. Yet the only Hawaiian sling 
in our collections heretofore, No. 4812, has been a somewhat crude 
contrivance of loosely braided bast fibre of the hau (Parttium tilt- 
aceum) with the braiding broadened (like matting) in the middle 
fora pocket. Fig. 6. On the handles, the braiding is three-ply, 
each fold consisting of two or more flat, overlying strands of the 
fibre, rounded and not twisted over the turn (thereby avoiding an 
entirely flat braid). Toward the pocket, other strands were in- 
serted, thickening the cord, but not increasing the number of 
folds, until the pocket was reached. Here the technique changed 
from cord-braiding to mat-plaiting, but the latter was less regular 
than usual with matting. It has the appearance of a hasty and 
untidy job, and is in strong contrast to the neat corded work in 
which the Polynesians in general, and the Hawaiians in particu- 
lar, were soadept. One of the handles is short, apparently broken. 
King’s description? might have been applied to similar speci- 
men: ‘‘The slings have nothing singular about them; and in no re- 
spect differ from our common slings, except that the stone is lodged 
on a piece of matting instead of leather.’’ 
Cook saw sling-stones on Kauai, as clearly shown by his refer- 
ence to ‘‘some oval pieces of whetstone well polished, but some- 
what pointed towards each end,’’+ but apparently not the slings. 
His description, immediately preceding the above, of the pieces of 
‘Op. cit., Fig. 28. A spherical form, from Hawaii, was illustrated in Occa- 
sional Papers, V, 43, Fig. 6. 
2W. T. Brigham, B. P. B. M. Memoirs, I, 344-346. 
3Cook’s Third Voyage, London, 1784, III, 152, relating to the island of 
Hawaii. TOpnCit-, Wl, 218. [236] 
