250 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



The Tridacna shell, particularly the thick part near the hinge, 

 was in former times highly and widely esteemed for this purpose, 

 as is recorded by Keate from the Pelews,* by Finsch from the 

 Carolines, Marshalls, and Gilberts,! by Guppy from the Solomons, J 

 by Dixon from Maiden Island, by Wilkes from the Paumotus,j| 

 by Moseley from the Admiralties ;1T and from Nanomea in the 

 Ellice itself Finsch obtained a specimen of a Tridacna axe. 



It would hardly have been anticipated that natives, like the 

 Solomon and Pelew Islanders, in the possession of hard volcanic 

 rock would have thus used this material, but Finsch repeatedly 

 remarks that the greater toughness of the shell gives it an 

 advantage over the more brittle stone.** 



In the Carolines the same author found the Tridacna blades to 

 assume various shapes, of which he figures a broad deltoid and a 

 narrow chisel form. ft Some of these attain an immense size, 

 reaching twenty inches in length and ten pounds in weight ; such, 

 he says, were common property. 



Describing relics of the race who formerly inhabited Maiden 

 Island, Mr. VV. A. Dixon writes : " In the grave was a hatchet 

 head with polished edge made from the shell of a tridacna. . . In 

 many places there were numerous axe heads chipped roughly out 

 of tridacna shells. These are tolerably easily made, the shell being 

 first broken transversely, when a blow on the fractured surface 

 breaks out from the interior of the shell an adze-shaped piece 

 which seems to me to be the pattern on which many of the South 

 Sea stone adzes are formed." jj 



These tools are thus described by Keate, from the Pelews : 

 " Their hatchets were not unlike those of the South Sea Islands, 

 the blade part being made of the strongest part of the large Kirna 

 Cockle, ground to a sharp edge. . . . Uncouth as their hatchets 

 might appear to our people, it was a matter of surprise to observe 

 in how little a time the natives were able to fell a tree with 

 them, though not without breaking several." 



A glance at a stone adze in the exhibition case of a museum 

 might not impress a spectator with a high opinion of its utility 



* Keate An Account of the Pelew Islands, 1788, p. 312. 



f Finsch Ann. K. K. Naturhist. Hofmus., viii., 1893, p. 65. 



J Guppy The Solomon Islands, 1887, p. 76. 



Dixon Journ. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., ix., 1877 (1878) p. 175. 



|| Wilkes op. cit. 



1 Challenger Eeports Narative, i., pt. ii., 1885, p. 716. 



** " In Lepers Island, the stone adzes were called talai maeto, black 

 clam shell, a name now given to iron ; the native adze was evidently at 

 first of shell, talai, and when stone was used the old name was retained." 

 Codrington The Melanesians, 1891, p. 314. 



ft Finsch op. cit., p. 214, figs. 36-38. 



Jit Dixon op, cit. 



Keate- op. cit., p. 312. 



