718 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
tliin to an edge on the rounded border, are used constantly as knives to cut cordage, and 
for similar purposes (see fig. 250); Knives are also made of the spine of a Sting Kay 
( Trygon ), and large pearl oyster shells ground smooth are used to dig with. Excellent 
oblong bags made of finely woven grass, and kept open by means of sticks placed inside 
are ornamented by long fringes and pendant strings, 
and have a handle and small mouth-opening (see 
PI. I. fig. 5). 
The Admiralty Islanders have no bows, slings, 
throwing sticks, ulas (Fiji), nor clubs. Their only 
weapons are lances or spears of several kinds, which 
shell, Admiralty islands. are thrown with the unaided hand, not even with 
a cord, as in New Caledonia. They have no spears 
like the Humboldt Bay men, Fijians, and others, to be used at close quarters, and no 
shields, though Jacobs mentions shields as in use at other parts of the group. 
The principal weapon is a lance, formed of a small, usually flexible, shaft of tough 
wood, often a natural stem, with the bark trimmed off, to the thicker end of which is 
attached a heavy head of obsidian, which in size appears out of proportion to the light 
shaft. The obsidian lance heads are usually triangular in outline, but some often irre- 
gular (see PI. G.). They are shaped by bold wide flaking. The points and edges are 
often slightly rechipped in order to sharpen them, but the original faces and angles are 
never worked up for the sake of symmetry or balance, but remain rough. Many lances 
have their edges and points sharp and perfect, though formed entirely by the original 
flaking. The hinder borders of the lance heads are simply rounded, and secured in a 
socket of wood attached to the end of the shaft by means of a cement, and by being- 
bound round with fine twine. The socket is hollowed out in a separate piece of wood, 
and in order to facilitate the scooping- out process two slots are usually cut in its two 
opposite faces (see PI. H. fig. 1, a, a', b, b'). The shaft of the lance is spliced into a 
Y-shaped slot in the lower part of the socket-piece. A rounded strengthening piece is 
retained in the socket-piece, between the actual socket and the narrowed part of it, in 
which the slot for the shaft is cut. A very hard and solid gum is used to bed the lance 
head and the shaft in their respective positions, and to mass together the turns of fine 
twine which secure the whole. In some lances the entire socket-piece and the turns of 
binding twine are concealed by a thick even layer of the gum, whilst in others the gum 
is used more sparingly, and the turns of twine and wood of the socket piece are exposed 
to view. In the former class of lances ornamentation is effected by patterns being 
incised in the layer of gum, and these have no Coix lachryma seeds attached to them 
(see PL I. fig. 1). Lance heads ornamented in this fashion were possibly the only ones 
made at some former period by the islanders, all the older specimens of Admiralty Island 
lances in the various continental and British collections obtained before the Challenger’s 
