POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
497 
bludgeon, for the purpose of close combat, or long, 
and furnished with a broad lozenge-shaped blade. The 
Tahitians did not often carve or ornament their wea¬ 
pons, but by the inhabitants of the Southern Islands 
they were frequently very neatly, though partially, carved. 
The inhabitants of the Marquesas carve their spears, and 
ornament them with human hair and the natives of the 
Harvey Islands, with the Friendly and Figiian islanders, 
construct their weapons with taste, and carve them with 
remarkable ingenuity. 
The paeho was a terrific sort of weapon, although it was 
principally used at the heva, or seasons of mourning. It 
resembled, in some degree, a club; but having the inner 
side armed with large shark’s teeth, it was more frequently 
drawn across the body, where it acted like a saw, than used 
for striking a blow. Another weapon of the same kind 
resembled a short sword, but, instead of one blade it had 
three, four, or five. It was usually made of a forked aito 
branch; the central and exterior branches, after having 
been pointed and polished, were armed along the outside 
with a thick line of sharks’ teeth, very firmly fixed in the 
wood. This was only used in close combat, and, when 
applied to the naked bodies of the combatants, must have 
been a terrific weapon. The bowels or lower parts of the 
body were attacked with it, not as a dagger is used, but 
drawn across like a saw. 
They do not use the patia, or dagger, of the Sandwich 
Islands, but substitute an equally fatal weapon, the aero 
faiy or back-bone of the stinging ray, which being ser- 
* This practice corresponds with that of the Malayans, among whom 
Dr. Buchanan saw a chief, the top of whose spear was ornamented with 
a tuft of hair, which he had taken from a vanquished foe, as he lay dying 
or dead at his feet. 
3s 
II. 
