266 



FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



Fig. 31. 



Another antique form, called simply " tifa," 

 of which I was fortunately able to secure 

 an authentic example, is shown by fig. 

 31. It is osseous, formed probably from 

 the carapace of a turtle, a third of an inch 

 thick, and an inch and a half in diameter, 

 and weighs two drachms forty-nine grains. 

 I was informed that such hooks were occasion- 

 ally made of hard coral. From the preceeding 

 it differs in the shape and position of the barb. 

 When the hook lies before the observer, 

 with the barb pointing downwards, the 

 hook has somewhat the form of a C. A hook of this type is 

 figured from Fakaafu by Lister.* Hooks resembling this form 

 are figured by Finsch, f but here the ends are reversed, what 

 forms the barb in the Ellice hook being the point of attachment 

 of the fishing-line in the Caroline one, and vice versa. On the 

 other hand various Tahitian hooks figured by Edge-PartingtonJ 

 agree with mine. As Finsch remarks, it is difficult to understand 

 how fish were caught with these blunt and clumsy hooks, but that 

 they effectually served their purpose is certain. 



A small comma-shaped tortoise shell hook is called 

 " faba" in Funafuti. Though an inch in length, it is 

 barely a millimetre thick, weighing three grains. The 

 specimen figured (fig. 32) is a model of an extinct 

 species, made for me on Funafuti. Though there 

 are vague references in literature to small turtle shell 

 hooks in the Pacific, I have not been able to find a 

 figure or description corresponding to my specimens. Keate tells 

 us that the Pelew Islanders made their fishing hooks of tortoise- 

 shell, one of which he figures. 



Some of the hooks in the Australian Museum, wrought from 

 turtle shell, show evidences of having been bent by heat, but the 

 Funafuti ones seem to have been carved cold. 



PEARL SHELL BONITO HOOKS, " BAWONGA." 

 These fish-hooks represented to the Ellice Islanders of past 

 generations their most valued treasures. Apart from their intrinsic 

 worth they acquired, as conveying a maximum of wealth in a 

 minimum of space, an artificial value approximating to the coins 

 of more advanced civilisations. Instances have been given of 

 their presentation to the gods (p. 47), of their burial with the 

 owners (p. 53), and of their transmission from atoll to atoll by 



* Journ. Anthrop. Inst., xxi., 1892, pi. ix., fig. 2. 

 t Finsch loc. cit., pi. in., figs. 5, 6, and 7. 

 J Edge-Partington loc. cit., ii., pi. xxi. 

 Keate op. cit., p. 311, pi. ii, fig. 4. 



Fig. 32. 



