136 CLUB TYPES OF NUCLEAR POLYNESIA. 
of the curves. This applies to this particular method and material, to 
engraving, to glyptic processes in the flat. 
It is not that the Fijians, the Tongans, and the Samoans do not 
know and employ curved lines in other material and in other methods. 
In their weaving and basketry they have not reached the device of 
employing stepped forms to suggest the curve; their decoration in this 
method remains right-line and angular. The same is true of their 
ornament with sennit; a high degree of angular ornament characterizes 
their great bales of this substance. In their siapos they employ the 
curve in many ways, both in the ground-pattern obtained by rubbing 
the bast material over a pattern board in which the device is expressed 
by cloisons, and in free-hand drawing with a pandanus nutlet frayed 
to a pencil for the application of liquid pigments. But in two of their 
arts—and in method these two have much in common—in tattooing 
and in wood engraving, the work is almost wholly rectilinear. True, 
the tattooing upon the thighs produces the effect in one detail of a 
finely sweeping curve, but it is shortly seen to be a straight line in 
itself and to get its curvature from the shape of the leg, just as in 
figure 58 it is mantiest that the vine unit is in a right line and the fine 
curve effect upon the club derives from the cylindrical surface upon 
which it is drawn in a spiral. 
This refraining from curved lines upon the clubs applies only to the 
ornament upon the fiat or cylinder; in space of three dimensions these 
clubs exhibit remarkable grace in the employment of curves (Plates I 
to III). It can not be a difficulty inherent in the material and the cut- 
ting-tool, for the very clubs which yield so grudgingly less than one- 
twelfth part of a square foot of curvilinear decoration carry at least 80 
designs in which curves are freely used in depicting men and other 
animals and in one case leaves. ‘The burin is a shark-tooth; the 
method is that of pecking and slicing; the durability of each tooth is 
brief; rarely does the enamel surface hold up beyond three or four 
cuts; but life in the tropical islands is full of shark-teeth. The texture 
of the wood does not condition greater ease along the straight line; 
there is no grain to consider; it is as dense as boxwood and may be 
carved with the same readiness in every direction. It seems to be 
clear that the use of curves upon the flat surface, two-dimensional orna- 
ment, is just coming into the favor of the island engravers, and that 
under the strong conservatism of savage intellect the two ancient 
decorative arts of the club and the skin have managed effectively to 
avoid the new ideas. 
Two of these figures show the curvilinear treatment of the end of the 
club-shaft. The limiting circle in each case is the product of the work 
in three dimensions; they are the ends of masses made cylindrical by 
chipping and rasping from a timber source which is in itself cylindrical 
by nature. In figure 48 occurs a central depression which is unique, 
