254 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



(I.) The Western Papuans make a club-shaped adze-handle, 

 through a perforation in the thick end of which is thrust the 

 mounted stone adze-head, the latter rotating as required in the 

 perforation.* The Australian Museum possess a series of this 

 pattern, collected by the Expedition of the Geographical Society 

 of Australasia to the Fly River, and also an instance from Hermit 

 Island to the west of the Admiralty Islands.! 



(II.) The second type, possessed by the Eastern Papuans, has 

 been described by Finsch, \ who states that it is called " lachela " * 

 on the South Coast of British New Guinea, and " ki," or " kis " 

 in Finschhafen, German New Guinea. Here the stone blade is 

 firmly attached to a wooden cone, the wood and stone together 

 constituting the moveable adze-head, the upper surface of the 

 short limb of the adze-handle is sloped and hollowed to receive 

 the cone of the adze-head, and both cone and limb are embraced 

 in a wide band or sleeve of woven rattan. When it is desired to 

 rotate the blade, the butt of the adze head, which usually projects 

 beyond the adze-handle, is tapped and slides forward, the adze- 

 head is then turned to the required angle and thrust back into 

 the rattan sleeve. Every subsequent blow, by driving the cone 

 along and up the wedge of the short arm of the handle, tends to 

 jamb the adze-head tighter into the rattan sleeve. 



(III ) To the third expression, employed by the Micronesians, 

 belongs the Funafuti tool, which invited attention to the foregoing ; 

 the only reference to this, known to me in literature, is more 

 than a century old. Keate,|| writing of the Pelew Islands, re- 

 marks that, " they had also another kind of hatchet, which was 

 formed in a manner to move round in a groove, that the edge 

 might act longitudinally, or transversely, by which it would serve 

 as a hatchet, or an adze, as occasion required." He also gives an 

 elaborate engraving of this tool with the legend, " A moveable 

 Hatchet." On comparing Keate's picture and account with 

 Finsch's sketch of a Tridacna adze from Kusaie (Carolines)U I am 



* This type is figured by Jukes Voyage of the " Fly," i.. 1847, plate 

 facing p. 274 ; by D'Albertis New Guinea, ii., 1880, figs. 6 and 11 of plate 

 facing p. 378 ;* by Finsch Ethnological Atlas, pi. i., fig. 5 ; and by Edge- 

 Partington loc. cit., i., pi. ccxcviii., fig. 1. 



f Moseley figures and describes loc. cit., ii., p. 717, fig. 249, 

 an axe from the Admiralty Islands, of which the blade was " merely 

 jammed in- a slot cut in a club-like billet of hard wood near its end." 

 Other relations between the Fly River and Northern Papuans are re- 

 ferred to by Haddon Cunningham Memoirs, x., 1894, p. 84. 



t Finsch op. cit., iii.,1888, p. 328, fig. 36; vi., 1891, p. 71 ; also Ethnol. 

 Atlas, pi. i., figs. 4, 7. 



In an unfigured and undescribed type from New Britain, the shorter 

 limb of the adze-handle tapers to a point and is received by a socket of 

 wood and cane attached to the blade. 



|| Keate An Account of the Pelew Islands, 1788, p. 312, pi. ii., fig. 3. 



IT Finsch op. cit., viii., 1893, p. 215, fig. 39. 



