Linton — The Marquesas Islands 359 



WOODEN COxNTAINERS 



The Marquesans made a great variety of wooden containers all of which 

 may be placed in one or the other of two main groups : boxes, and bowls or dishes. 

 The objects of each of these classes show considerable individual variation, and 

 in the case of covered containers it is often difficult to say whether a given speci- 

 men is a bowl or a box. 



BOXES 



Wooden boxes, used for the storage of valuables, formed part of the 

 equipment of every well-to-do Marquesan family. Such boxes were hewn from 

 large pieces of wood by the processes described under bowl manufacture. (See 

 p. 360.) The favorite materials were breadfruit, temanu and niio. The boxes 

 varied greatly in size and in minor details of form and decoration, but all the speci- 

 mens seen were clearly of a single type. They were made in two parts, a body 

 and a lid. (See PI. Lix, A.) 



The body was oval in outline, with a more or less rounded bottom and considerably 

 recurved sides ; the upper edge was finished in a narrow flat rim which was broadened at 

 either end. At one end of the body a large knob projected above the rim, while at the op- 

 posite end the body was either flattened or bore a short flat-ended horizontal projection. The 

 lid was rounded on the outside, excavated inside, and bore along the inner edge of its rim a 

 thin downward projecting flange which accurately fitted the orifice of the body. The end 

 which rested against the knob of the body when the lid was in position was either flat or 

 notched. The opposite end was elongated and provided on the under side with a short down- 

 ward projection like a thick blunt hook, which rested against the outside of the body. 



In one specimen, which differs in other details from the normal type, the 

 rear end of the lid bears an upward projection corresponding to the knob of the 

 body. (See PI. lix, B.) In well made boxes the lid fits the body so closely 

 that it is frequently difficult to remove it. The whole utensil appears to be a more 

 or less modified bird form, the body knob representing the head; the horizontal 

 projection of the lid, the tail. (See PI. Lix, C.) Boxes were frequently carved 

 and the designs were usually the same as those used upon bowls. The first step 

 apparently was to carve the body knob into a tiki face, and specimens in which 

 this constitutes the sole decoration are not uncommon, although the more ornate 

 examples are carved all over. In one crudely carved specimen in the Bishop 

 Museum the designs show a preponderance of angular-geometric figures coupled 

 with small line representations of human beings which are not of tiki type. (See 

 PI. Lix, B.) 



BOWLS AND DISHES 



Wooden bowls and dishes are probably more numerous in ethnological 

 collections than any other objects of Marquesan manufacture, as the elaborate 

 carvings with which many of them are decorated make them eagerly sought after 

 by collectors. They still form part of the equipment of every native household 



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