260 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



half ounces, and is eleven inches long by two and three-quarters 

 wide. The sheet of ray skin is six inches by four, and is sewn 

 together at the back with fine sinnet. The bleached condition of 

 the wooden handle shows it to be drift wood, and the weight and 

 grain agrees with that of red cedar (Cedrela toona). 



Rasps were also improvised out of a rough piece of coral. 



SPADES. 



The literary history of the spade in the Pacific is both brief 

 and obscure.* 



An article is represented in the Ethnographical Album, f which 

 Dr. Gill describes as " the ancient spade of the Mangaiians, always 

 used in a squatting posture, also used (and intended to be used) 

 as a club"; Edge-Partington further figures a series j described in 

 the margin as " steering paddles, " but which are indexed as 

 " spades " from Fiji a spade-blade of tortoiseshell, bored for lash- 

 ing to a handle, is represented ; |j from Samoa is shownll an 

 instrument referred to as a " spade (?) of Pinna shell "; and from 

 Tonga a Meleagrina margaritifera valve, bored and similarly 

 mounted on a pole, is classified as a "spade(?)"** 



On Fakarava, Paumotu Group, Stolpe obtained a "model of 

 spade wherewith aforetime they buried their dead. The model, 

 which is of the actual size, consists of a staff, with a great pearl 

 mussel shell fast bound to either end by coconut plaiting. The 

 entire implement is 146 cm. long.''ff 



Of the Tongans, Captain Cook wrote : " The instruments they 

 use for this purpose [digging], which they call hoo, are nothing 

 more than pickets or stakes of different lengths, according to the 

 depth they have to dig. These are flattened and sharpened to an 

 edge at one end ; and the largest have a short piece fixed trans- 

 versely, for pressing it into the ground with the foot. With these, 



* For remarks on the use of agricultural implements in New Zealand, 

 see Polack Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders, ii., 1840, p. 

 194; and in Australia, R. Elheridge, Juur. Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., ix., 

 (2), 1894 (1895), pp. 109-112. 



t Edge-Partington op. cit., i., pi. v., fig. 6. 



j Id., Zoc. cit., pi. xxxvi., figs. 1-3. 



All the steering paddles that I have seen were carved solid in one 

 piece, and the frailty of the specimens drawn suggests to me that he who 

 ticketed these articles " steering paddles," had not acquired his lore in 

 the salt air and sunshine of the Southern Seas. For he had surely never 

 seen a steering paddle jammed hard down with all the force of the brown 

 steersman's arm and watched the surging water straining it as the tall 

 and tasselled prow swung slowly up to windward. 



|| Edge-Partington op. cit., pi. cxix., fig. 12. 



f Id., loc. cit., ii., pi. xliv., fig. 3. 



** Id., loc. cit., ii., pi. 1., fig. 9. 



ft Trans. Eochdale Lit. and Scientific Soc., iii., 1893, p. 112. 



