ETHNOLOGY HEDLEY. 249 



distant from these notches to the distal end the blade is ornamented 

 on both sides and faces by twenty shallow grooves, separated by 

 interstices of equal breadth, so alternating with those of the 

 opposite surface as to serrate the edge of the weapon. These 

 grooves perhaps represent a degeneration from the toothed edge 

 of certain Samoan clubs.* The use of these teeth' and notches 

 probably was to catch and snap the spears of an enemy. 



The lakautaua is of hard wood, probably Pemphis ; it weighs 

 one pound three ounces, and measures one foot seven inches in 

 length, and two and a half inches in breadth. 



Among the Penrhyn Islanders, Lamont remarked that: "The 

 long, light, paddle-shaped club used by the women is called 

 ' coerarai,' and is used in battle principally for breaking the 

 spears of the men of the opposite party."f 



The rough sketch and brief notice do not admit of satisfactory 

 identification, but a species of lakautaua is suggested to me by 

 a drawing; in the Ethnological Album, described as a " flat 

 wooden fan, stained black in places: Tokelau Island, Union 

 Group." Should " fan " be a grimly ironical misnomer for a 

 messenger of death, the black stains may be those of human 

 blood. The probable inaccuracy of the ethnological statement is 

 countenanced by the geographical confusion of this quotation. 



A club figured by Edge-Partington as from Fiji, has several 

 features in common with the Funafuti model, such as the propor- 

 tion of handle to blade, and the raised central keel and distal 

 truncation of the latter. Perhaps one of a group of articles 

 figured by Wilkes from the Kingsmills stands for another.|| 



ADZES AND AXES. 



In 1773 Captain Cook found iron already in the hands of the 

 South Sea Islanders. The process, then commencing, of replacing 

 stone,- shell, and bone with metal is now completed. For there is 

 not an island, however remote, in Polynesia where non-metallic 

 adzes are any longer used, only the remembrance of them existing 

 in the minds of the oldest natives. 



The collection of Ellice adzes and axes falls into two divisions, 

 the ancient, non-metallic and extinct types represented by models, 

 and those now in use in which a metal blade has been adapted to 

 the ancient tool. Stone blades being obviously unattainable, the 

 models of ancient adzes were set with shell ones. In every case 

 the shell was Tridacna, though it is probable that in Funafuti, as 

 elsewhere in the Pacific, other mollusca such as Mitra episcopalis, 

 or Terebra maculata, would sometimes furnish adze-heads. 



* Such as Edge-Partington loc. cit., i., pi. Ixxiv., fig. 2. 



t Lamont Wild Life among the Pacific Islanders, 1867, p. 133. 



J Edge-Partington loc. cit., ii., pi. xcvi., fig. 3. 



Loc. cit., ii., pi. liv., fig. 1. 



|| Wilkes loc. cit., v., p. 79, the object lying furthest left. 



