Liuton — The Ularqucsas Islands 403 



MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS 



DRUMS 



In musical ability the Marquesans appear to have been inferior to the 

 Tahitians and the Hawaiians, but they possessed a number of musical instruments, 

 the most important of which were drums (PL Lxxii, A). That these were made 

 in a variety of forms and sizes is indicated by the following terms from Dor- 

 dillon's Dictionary'' : 



Pahu. Drum. 



Pahu peiei. Small drum. 



Pahu ua. Double drum. 



Pahu me'ae. Large drums used in the mc'ac. 



Pahu putuu. Short drum. 



Pahu oeoe. Small drum used to accompany songs. 



Pahu tapete. Long narrow drum. 



Umi. Drum. 



Teveteve. Drum. 



Pare. Kind of small drum. 



L'haki. Small drum played with the uhaki. 



Pahu vanana. A thin drum, perhaps six feet high, made of ton 



wood; it was beaten as an accompaniment for 

 the singing of the z'aiiaiia by the men in the 

 mc'ae. 



\Jtu. A small drum used at feasts. 



Pahu umi. A small drum. 



Tutu. Small drums played on the tolnia. 



Pahu anana. Big drums beaten from a paepac. 



Unfortunately several of the drums in this list can no longer be identified. 

 The palm ua must have constituted a distinct type, but no information in regard 

 to it was obtained and no examples seem to have survived. Except for the 

 palm ua, all the Marcjuesan drums figured or preserved conform so closely to a 

 single type of design and construction that it seems probable that they differed 

 onh' in size and in minor details. The}- may be described as follows : 



The smallest drum seen was slightly more than thirteen inches high with a head diameter 

 of six inches. The largest, a pahu me'ae. had lost its base through decay, but must originally 

 have been more than eight feet high with a rim diameter of nineteen inches. The bases of 

 even the largest drums seem to have been comparatively low, the differences in height result- 

 ing from variations in the length of the body. 



All drums were hewn from a single piece of wood. Some very large drums were 

 apparently made from temanu, but the decay of the wood made identification difficult. 

 Drums of ordinary size appear to have been uniformly made of mio; and as only the dark heart 

 wood was used, very large trees must have been required. The body of the drum was shaped 

 with adzes and the interior hollowed with chisel and mallet. Fire does not seem to have 

 been used. 



The body of the Marquesan drum was cylindrical. In drums of ordinary size the dia- 

 meter was slightly greater at the bottom than at the top, but in the very large temple drums 



Translation and explanatory notes by E. S. Craigliill Handy. 



[143] 



