Hawaiian Curved Adzes. 



By William T. Brighaji. 



It has long been a pnzzle 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. i, 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 phouolite with a brown oxydized surface. 

 Weight 3 lbs. 9 oz.; breadth 5.7 in.; length 8.2 in. (10.2 when 

 entire?); thickness 2 in. (Figs. 1 and 2.) 



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