i6 Bernice P. Bishop Museum — Bulletin 



by the beginning of the nineteenth century, designs in Nuku Hiva were a 

 combination of purely geometric figures with all save two of the principal 

 conventional units of the latest phase of the art that at the present day 

 is universally attributed by the natives to the southeastern islands, which 

 for convenience may be referred to as the Hiva Oa development. Dor- 

 dillon (3) gives the names of many motives which have completely disap- 

 peared today, most of them recorded in the northwestern group. Of 

 these, several would indicate naturalistic treatment : a'akitu, line of sea 

 builders; aukohuliu, a seaweed; haha'ua, a kind of ray fish; homae, a 

 fish ; koao, a fish ; matiiku, a bird ; keehcu, wing ; .tikau'e, fly ; toetoe, crab. 

 Furthermore, in 1843 Melville saw fish and birds and an artu(?) tree 

 tattooed on natives of Nuku Hiva (13, p. 157) ; Desgraz, the same year, 

 describes fish and shells (18, p. 223); Garcia in 1845, fish; Berchon, in 

 1859, boots, gloves, suns, sharks, cockroaches, coconuts, lizards. In ad- 

 dition to these naturalistic motives, all these visitors also saw geometric 

 patterns, showing that in the northwestern group as long as we have any 

 record of tattooing there, the two types have existed side by side as 

 they do today. (For naturalistic motives see Pis. xviii ; xx, B, c; xi, D; 

 XXX, /; for geometric, Pis. xviii, xix, xx. A, b; xxi, D, a). 



On the other hand the earliest drawings obtainable that are known 

 to be of the Hiva Oa type are those drawn by Proiho and an old tuhuna 

 pain tiki of Fatu Hiva (Pis. ix, A; xii, C; xiv, B; xvi ; xxx). These 

 are impossible to place chronologically and are no longer found upon the 

 body in exactly these forms. Among them is found but one genuinely 

 naturalistic motive (PI. xxx, ;) but a combination of geometric figures 

 such as squares (PI. xii, C, b and e), bars (PI. xxx, C). oblique (PI. 

 xxx, d) and variously crossed lines (PI. xvi, d; xxx, a; xxx, k), with 

 simple forms of all the modern conventional motives save the matakomoe 

 of Langsdorflf, now called po'i'i (PI. xxxiii, c) and the flower-like or 

 sunlike disk variously called pnahitu, pualiue and huctai (PI. xxxiv, e), 

 both of which are to be found in primitive form in the early Nuku Hiva 

 art (PI. XXIX, /, c). Today three naturalistic designs, and these very 

 crude, are to be found in the southeastern group, and these are all the 

 work of the same artist. (Pis. x. A, 2, 0; xxviii, D, B). The designs 

 described as belonging to former Nuku Hiva and Fatu Hiva styles have 

 in common several units, many of them in primitive form which are to 

 be found today in the Hiva Oa style: for example, the koheta (Pis. xxx, a: 

 XXIX, o and b; xxxiv, a and b); the ka'ake (Pis. xxx, i; xxix, h; 

 xxxiv, o- insets) ; the hikuhiku aiu (Pis. xxix, b; xxx, g; xxxiii, h) ; and 

 the inata hoata (Pis. xxx, e. lower a: xxix, i:,: i, D. thigh) : and what I 



