256 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



would be utilised. The iron is let into and lashed to a spade- 

 shaped holder in precisely the fashion in which the plane-iron 

 edge is fastened to its adze-handle. This wooden holder is about 

 ten inches long, consisting of a round rotating shaft about six 

 inches long and a wedge-head, the latter being four inches long, 

 two broad, and at the thick end an inch and a quarter deep. The 

 base of the wedge grinds against the truncated arm of the handle 

 which receives the shock of the blow, while the shaft is nearly 

 buried in a deep groove along the T head of the handle. Both 

 handle and holder are cross-furrowed by two deeply incised ring- 

 grooves, one before and one behind, while vestiges of a third are 

 apparent. Stout sinnet bindings occupy 'these grooves and keep 

 the holder in its position in the 

 groove of the handle. 



Another, and as Keate's figure 

 suggests, probably archaic, method 

 of lashing the holder to the handle 

 is shown (fig. 20) by a specimen I 

 - 20. sketched, but could not obtain, on 



Funafuti. 



PUMP DRILL.* 



Perhaps the only existing people who do not practise perforation 

 by drilling are the Australian Aborigines, who however incident- 

 ally drilled holes in the process of making fire. The Polynesians 

 are much more advanced. 



The Pump Drill of the West Pacific never fails to elicit expressions 

 of surprise and admiration from those who first see it used by the 

 natives. So attractive a subject has naturally received due atten- 

 tion from travellers, and as several good figures of it have already 

 appeared, I need not here burden literature with more. 



The pump drill seems to have been an evolution from the simple 

 shaft drill, from which it arose by easy and natural improvements. 

 The simple shaft drill, as the older and simpler form, was wider 

 spread in space consequent on its superior antiquity allowing it the 

 greater chance of passing from people to people to remoter limits. 

 When European civilisation invaded the Pacific and commenced to 

 deaden the progress of native manners and customs, the pump drill 

 was probably Overtaking and replacing the simple shaft drill on 

 the periphery of an out-rippling circle. 



To trace the path of either form would be to unravel the vexed 

 question of the origin of the Pacific races. " The rotatory 

 drill," says Brigham, "and the kupaaikee adze are both Papuan 



* For an account of the pump drill beyond the geographical limits of 

 the present article, see J. D. McGuire A Study of the primitive methods 

 of Drilling .Report of the U.S. National Museum, 1894, (189G) p. 733. 



