ETHNOLOGY HKDLEY. 



261 



though they are not more than from two to four 

 inches broad, they dig and plant ground of many 

 acres in extent."* 



Though the peculiar method of mounting the blade 

 by boring and lashing to the pole, may be useful as a 

 clue in distinguishing the Pacific spade, it cannot be 

 regarded as a feature separating it from other imple- 

 ments. A type of New Caledonian axef shares this 

 character, and in the Gilbert Group the paddles are 

 made in this way, as Wilkes has shown J and Finsch 

 confirmed. With the Gilbert paddle agrees another 

 figured from the Admiralty Islands by Moseley, |j 

 and a specimen from Anchorite Island in the Aus- 

 tralian Museum. Indeed the Pacific spade suggests 

 for itself a polyphyletic origin from the paddle of the 

 Gilbert Islander, the club of the Mangaiian, or the 

 axe of the New Caledonian. 



In the Ellice, two agricultural implements existed. 

 A species of mattock, resembling an adze of which 

 the minor limb was lengthened and armed with turtle 

 carapace, was obtained by one of the officers of H.M.S. 

 " Penguin," on Funafuti. A cognate tool is mentioned 

 by Finsch from Mortlock Island. H Another of our party 

 also procured some indifferent models of a 

 spade, or long-handled shovel, on Funafuti, 

 where their use had been long abandoned and 

 their place taken by metal bladed substitutes. 



On Nukulailai, however, I found this 

 type surviving and in daily use. A speci- 

 men I there procured is shown by figs. 

 23 and 24. This spade is in two parts, a 

 handle and a blade ; the former is a pole, 

 perhaps of Ochrosia wood, five feet long 

 and an inch and a quarter in diameter, 

 and the latter an oval, spoon-shaped board 

 of perhaps GalophyUum wood, sixteen inches 

 long, nine wide, and half-an-inch thick, 

 proximally it narrows to a shaft four inches 

 long and one and a half wide, which is 

 bound to the pole, additional strength being 

 given by lashings which pass round the pole 

 through two pairs of perforations in the 



* Cook A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, i., 1785, p. 392. A Maori spade 

 and hoe are figured by Taylor New Zealand and its inhabitants, 1870, 

 pp. 360, 423 ; and the Hawaiian by Ellis loc. cit., iv., p. 195. 



f Edge-Partington op. cit., i., pi. cxxviii., fig. 3. 



j Wilkes Joe. tit., v.,p.52, fig. Finsch loc. cit., viii., 1893, p.70,fig.!2. 



|| Moseley Journ Anthrop. Inst., vi., 1877, pi. xxii. 1 Finsch loc. cit. 



