ETHNOLOGY HEDLEY. 



259 



No drills, I believe, existed on Funafuti at the date of our arrival. 

 The natives were, however, well acquainted with the tool and des- 

 cribed them to me as formerly in use pointed with Terebra maculata 

 and Mitra episcopalis ; a clumsy model of one, pointed with a 

 fragment of Pteroceras, was made on the island for one of our 

 party. On Fakaafu, Lister saw a drill pointed with a sea 

 urchin's tooth. On the neighbouring atoll of Nukulailai I was 

 able to secure a specimen in actual use. Here it was called 

 " milli," and was chiefly employed in making pearl-shell fish-hooks. 

 This specimen weighs six and a half ounces, measures twenty-one 

 inches in total length, is fitted half-way with a fly-wheel four and 

 a half inches in diameter and three-quarters of an inch thick of Euro- 

 pean or American deal, from one end a rod a foot long is swung from 

 nine inch long sinnet cords, and to the other end is lashed a pointed, 

 steel, triangular, saw-file.* 



RASP. 



Woodwork, trimmed into shape by the adze, received a finish 

 from the rasp, "jiri," made of the rough skin of the Ray. An un- 

 mounted fragment, such as a piece of the tail, sometimes served, 

 but more usually the skin was neatly mounted on a wooden handle. 



The natives of Fakaafu, " had saws and files, formed of shark's 

 skin stretched on sticks, which in their hands were quite effective 

 in wearing away the soft wood.f 

 From Santa Cruz and Banks Island, 

 New Hebrides, Edge-Partington 

 shows similar mounted rasps. J 

 Lament relates that at Penrhyn 

 Island: "The spears are finally 

 polished with the ' poerare,' a kind 

 of rasp, of fish-skin, fastened on 

 a stick." Captain Cook saw on 

 Tonga " rasps, of a rough skin of 

 a fish, fastened on flat pieces of 

 wood, thinner on one side, which 

 also have handles. "|| 



Ling Roth figures a "file made 

 of fish-skin gummed on to wood, 

 from S.E. Borneo."*! 



The Funafuti specimen of which 

 figs. 21 and 22 give back and 

 front views, weighs three and a 



* Since the preceding pages were printed off, a figure and description 

 (Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xxvi., 1897, p. 433) of the New Caledonian drill, 

 therein mentioned, have reached me. t Wilkes loc. cit., v., p. 17.' ._," 



J Edge Partington loc. cit., i., pi. clxiii.,fig. 9 ; ii., pi. Ixxxvi., fig. 3. , 



Lament op. cit., p. 155. 



|| Cook A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, i., 1784, p. 395. 



IFLing Roth Natives of Sarawak and British North Borneo, ii., 1896, 

 p. 256. 

 B 



Fig. 21. 



Fig. 22. 



