122 CLUB TYPES OF NUCLEAR POLYNESIA. 
any other example of the use of the spike. It is easy to comprehend 
how in the case of such heavy implements as these clubs devoted. to 
uses essentially violent the need might arise for a firmer adjustment of 
parts than is provided in the Admiralty Island spears by gum and 
lashing. 
The ornament of the blades in these three pieces introduces a prob- 
lem of intricacy still greater than that of the socket-piece. Of course 
the shape is meaningless in any art of wood; it is clearly the conven- 
tionalizing of some stone form. ‘The markings in themselves are with- 
out meaning. Because of their engagement with cutting-surfaces it is 
impossible to look upon them as in the least associable with twine 
lashing, which serves satisfactorily to explain the decoration of the 
socket-piece. Disregarding the difference in the markings of the three 
pieces as mere variety on the part of the clubwrights in the interpreta- 
tion of an imperfectly comprehended motive, we find that all are con- 
gruent upon certain details and upon the interrelation of those details. 
These are as follows: Centrally situated on the blade-face a quadri- 
lateral which appears as a well-designed lozenge or in poorer execution 
as kite-shaped figures; in 3362 this lozenge is clearly divided into four 
distinct members; engaging with the upper edges of the quadrilateral 
and sweeping from its median diagonal, lines of decoration reach to the 
cusps of the blade at its edge; between the lower edges of the quadri- 
lateral and the next preceding unit of design are two triangles with 
their bases resting on the edge of the blade. Merely as scratches on a 
wooden surface these represent nothing which can have any meaning. 
I regard them as carrying out a design of really much-advanced drafts- 
manship—the line representation of the high lights of a varied surface— 
every plane represented by diversity in its linear representation quite 
as is done still in pen-and-ink drawings. This could have no particular 
application to the ordinary type of stone or shell axe; these are rubbed 
down to a surface which displays no variety. After long study of each 
detail of these pieces I am led irresistibly to the obsidian and the high 
lights upon its fracture surfaces, which under skilful pressure tend to 
considerable regularity of conchoidal fracture. I assume, therefore, as 
the prototype an obsidian fragment sufficiently large to serve as an 
axe-bit, its mounting in a slotted socket, its compaction with gum and 
twine lashing and pegs. In all except the pegs and the size of the blade 
we can find all these elements in the remarkable obsidian spears of the 
Admiralty Islands. It has been a most intricate elucidation; so many 
critical elements of the composition have had to pass under individual 
review that the end may have been obscured in the detail; but now that 
it is assembled in its simplest statement I find that not only is that 
explanation satisfactory to my best judgment, but it is exclusive. No 
other explanation has sufficed; interpretations which have arisen for 
consideration in the case of individual units have failed completely 
