THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
712 
and chests, the colouring matter used being an ore of manganese, which gives their 
bodies a metallic lustre, like that produced by plumbago or boot-blacking. This mode of 
decoration was often observed in the old women, and especially in a group engaged 
in singing an incantation. One man, who was possibly a priest, was always thus 
smeared over the face, arms, and chest, so that perhaps blackening has a religious 
signification. 
The natives almost universally chew betel, using the pepper leaf, areca nut, and 
lime together as usual. Some one or two men were observed who did not chew at all 
and had no lime gourds. The lime is carried in gourds of a different form from those 
used at Humboldt Bay, but perforated in the same manner at one end with a small hole 
through which the long spoon-stick is inserted. The lime is conveyed to the mouth 
by means of the stick. 
Most of these spoon-sticks were plain (PL K. fig. 2, b), but some few were carved at 
the handle end, the finest obtained having belonged to the chief (see fig. 241), and being 
adorned with a perforated carved haudle of considerable artistic merit cut out of the 
same piece as the stick. These instruments are all narrow in the blade, and show no 
tendency to broaden out into the spoon shape of the more highly developed corresponding 
implements of some other Melanesian races. The majority of them are in the most 
primitive form of the simple stick only. At Humboldt Bay the. lime gourds are seldom 
decorated, and are of a simple cucumber-like shape. At the Admiralty Islands they are 
all decorated, and are of a peculiar form, somewhat like an hourglass, being constricted 
in the middle (see PI. K. figs. 2, 2a, 3). All have a pattern burnt in on their surfaces, 
which is very peculiar, and almost exactly alike on all. It has no doubt had its origin 
In the representation of some natural objects, but it appears impossible to make out the 
nature of this from the pattern in its present condition. One gourd obtained bears a 
drawing of a lizard ; some bear a series of short parallel lines near the middle, possibly 
marks of ownership (see PL K. figs. 2, 2a). 
The use of kaava and of tobacco is entirely unknown to the natives, kaava being 
unknown to all other Melanesians except the Fijians, who probably learnt it from 
Polynesians. 
The principal vegetable foods of the islanders are cocoanuts and sago. This last is 
prepared into a farina, and preserved in hard cylindrical blocks about a foot in height 
and 6 or 8 inches in diameter. Specimens of the preparation have been placed in the 
Kew Museum. Taro ( Caladium esculentum) is also eaten, and is cultivated in small 
