20 Bcrnicc P. Bishop Museum — Bulletin 



to be the only conventional derivative of a naturalistic portrayal of the 

 tortoise and probably the only pure body motive among the variants called 

 kea. The southeastern carving motive is the kea which prevails today. 



Another usual conventional motive appearing both in carving and 

 tattooing, the mata Iwata, or brilliant eye (PI. xxvi, A. c), would appear 

 to have originated in neither, being, in its simplest form, a copy of the eyes, 

 ears and nostrils of a tiki or image face. Only on wood is this simple copy 

 found today, and on wood we find all the transition stages of its develop- 

 ment to the highly conventionalized unit common in tattooing today; 

 whence it would appear that the mata hoata originated in sculpture, was 

 copied upon wood, and transferred to the body, where it gradually was 

 elaborated and more highly conventionalized. (For development see PI. 

 xxXj b, which is found only on wood today; xi, A, c; xviii, h; xxxiv, h; 

 XXXIII, c; XXIII, B, f, a; xxiii. A, a, center.) 



Of conventional motives the ka'ake is perhaps the most widely used. 

 Dordillon gives kakekake as one of the words used to designate tattooing 

 which is entirely finished. He spells the word "kake," but it seems better 

 to adopt the spelling "ka'ake" for the following reasons : The distinguish- 

 ing feature of the motive is its never varying curve which seems to cor- 

 respond to the line of the under-arm curve or arm-pit for which the 

 native term is ka'ake. The assumption that this curve of the body origi- 

 nally gave the name to the motive is borne out by several lines of rea- 

 soning. In the first place, Langsdorfif assigns the placing of this motive 

 originally to the inside arm and ribs (lo, p. xv) ; in the second place, 

 we have described for us this simple under-arm curve as its earliest 

 form (PI. XXIX, h; xxx, i) ; and in the third place, the elaborations of 

 this curve, as the motive grew in complexity, are representations of the 

 enaia or man with upraised arms (PI. vi, B, center bottom), and of the 

 poka'a (PI. IX, B at base of fingers) or curved wooden object placed on 

 the shoulders on which to rest a pole in carrying a heavy load. The associa- 

 tion of ideas seems obvious and we find them associated today as minor deco- 

 rations in the under-arm pattern ( IM. xiii, B. o. b : xiii, C", c and d; 

 XIV, A). This combination is especially marked in the simpler forms of 

 the ka'ake as found on Ua Pou (PI. xx, B, b) and Nuka Hiva (PI. xv, a). 

 Although this unit appears upon wood, it seems reasonable to suggest that 

 it was originally a body pattern. 



There are certain body motives which seem never or rarely to have 

 been used upon wood, such as the hiietai (PI. xxxiv, e) and the po'i'i 

 (PI. xxxiii, e; XXVI, A, d, center), which are associated with early Nuku 

 Hiva, not Hiva Oa, art ; and there are .some which are just beginning 

 to be transferred to wood at the present time, as the ipu'oto. another unit 



