246 



FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



the loop, which passes round the back of the head, made in one 

 piece instead of being in two strings knotted together ; also in 

 having the front margin projecting into horns at the corners, 

 which Mr. N. Hardy suggests to me are ornamental representa- 

 tions of the wings of Frigate Birds. On some of the other atolls 

 of the group, Mr. O'Brien tells me that small pouches for the 

 reception of fish-hooks, etc., were made on the under surface of 

 the flap. On Funafuti the natives had a trick of thrusting such 

 sundries as a stick of trade tobacco into the plaits of their eye-shades. 



Two specimens of the 

 eye-shade from Funafuti 

 present themselves for 

 description. Both are 

 of woven pandanus leaf; 

 the larger shown in 

 fig. 11 is fifteen inches 

 ounce and a quarter, 

 by six, and weighs an 

 it is coarsely plaited, of 

 about nine, broad, diago- 

 nal pandanus strands, 

 an inch or an inch and 

 a half wide; from the 



Fig. 1 1 . inner margin the strands 



are carried in a band 



and knotted at the back of the head, so as to form a loop about 

 a foot long. The smaller example is about twelve by four and a 

 half inches, of finer pandanus strands, there being about thirty 

 rows of quarter inch plaits ; the weight of it is half an ounce. 

 The smaller figure is a sketch, taken on the spot, of a palm frond 

 tip which I saw a native in process of weaving into an eye-shade. 



ORNAMENTS. 



Trinkets for personal adornment, except those of European 

 pattern, are now, through missionary influence, disused on Funa- 

 futi. A band of small and polished Nautilus shells, somewhat 

 like that Edge-Partington figures from Samoa,* was purchased 

 by a member of the Expedition. As the Pearly Nautilus does 

 not occur alive on the atoll, and rarely if ever drifts there, I am 

 not satisfied of the local origin of that ornament. 



On Nukulailai I found shell necklaces in fashion. One I 

 purchased called "pouli," weighs an ounce and a half and 

 measures sixteen inches in length, and was composed of a hundred 

 and seven bleached and yellow shells of Melampus luteus, each 

 pierced near its anterior extremity, and strung either backwards 



Edge-Partington ?oc. cit., pi. Ixxxvi., fig. 2. 



