ETHNOLOGY HEDLEY. 



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but on the first occasion on which I saw a stone adze used, my 

 previous ideas on this subject were promptly dissipated. Passing 

 a canoe-builder at work in Kerepunu, British New Guinea, I 

 observed him hewing with a steel tomahawk while beside him 

 lay a rotary stone adze. Being requested to show how the latter 

 was employed, the native obligingly laid aside his European tool 

 and resumed the Papuan one. Three years daily toil in the 

 Queensland bush with an American axe had made me familiar 

 with its use, and it was with the critical eye of a fellow-craftsman 

 that I watched the Papuan axeman. I expected to see him chop 

 with short, light strokes, but with astonishment I siw him plant 

 his feet firmly, swing his adze over his left shoulder at full arm's 

 length, sliding the left hand down the handle in doing so, and 

 then, rising slightly on his toes, bring it down with all the force 

 of every muscle in his arms, back, and legs. After freeing the 

 chip, the adze went up and round and down, and down again, in 

 the most workmanlike style. Under these blows a rain of chips, 

 long, broad chips, sprang from the adze blade over the heads of 

 the bystanders. The aim proved equal to the force, as a strip of 

 timber disappeared inch by inch under well directed even strokes. 



The model on which is based fig. 16, has 

 a handle sixteen inches long, the shape 

 of that of the ordinary plane iron adze. A 

 short limb, six inches in length, departs from 

 the handle at an angle of about thirty -five 

 degrees, on the outer distal side of which the 

 adze head is let in. Flat sinnet, interlaced as 

 shown in the figure, binds this on firmly. The 

 head itself is a rough deltoid chip, three inches 

 long, two broad, and half an inch thick, from 

 the valve of Tridacna squamosa, the inner face 

 of the valve being applied to the wood, while upon 

 the outer the ridges, furrows, and scales can 

 still be distinguished ; a blunt chisel edge is 

 produced by grinding the outer surface. This 

 tool was known in Funafuti as the " toki 

 fasua " (lit. Tridacna Adze). 



Another extinct type, reproduced in models 

 for me by the natives, was the "toki fonu," or 

 Turtle Axe. It is exceptional to find an axe (as 

 opposed to an adze) in Polynesia.* The Tongans could only express 

 an axe to Mariner by circumlocution as, "togi fucca anga gehe an 

 adze having the blade differently turned with respect to the handle." 

 The range of this type is probably inconsiderable, as other lands 



* In Papua the ceremonial tools seem all axes, not adzes. Finsch 

 figures a hoop-iron axe from the Dentrecasteaux ; Ethnol. Atlas, pi, i., 

 fiff. 8. 



Fig. 16. 



