160 CLUB TYPES OF NUCLEAR POLYNESIA. 
in the region of Buka culture that they were led to adopt this distinc- 
tive type of weapon. We shall await with interest the collection of 
linguistic and cultural material from the northern Solomons for the light 
which it may show in confirmation of the interrelation of the two races. 
We see a Melanesian source, and no other than Melanesian, for the 
general character of the ornament upon these clubs. When in Nuclear 
Polynesia a physical application appears upon the club-shaft it is 
invariably either a coil of sennit or a simple leaf tie. Yet the incised 
ornament, as distinguished from that which is applied, is predomi- 
nantly characterized by the motive of weaving. This again we find 
to characterize Buka culture. A most interesting collection of arms 
from Buka and adjacent Bougainville exhibits not only the bows but 
the clubs and spears and even the fragile arrows completely covered 
with a fine plaiting in woven pattern of the fibers of grass and of 
Gleichenia fern. 
All these details point in the direction of northern Melanesia as hav- 
ing left an impress, a dominant influence, upon the club art of Nuclear 
Polynesia, and this holds true both of the Melanesian element in Fiji 
and of the Proto-Samoan element in the other archipelagoes. The latter 
has received such abundant confirmation in the research addressed upon 
the linguistic problems as to justify the establishment of the Samoa 
Stream of migration-movement from an Indonesian exit by way of the 
north shore of New Guinea, thence through the Bismarck Archipelago 
and the Solomons to a port in Samoa, including Rotuma on the way. 
This movement of migration is inferential though probable; it is set 
back into a somewhat remote past. The linguistic record establishes 
certain datum points along this track, but our comprehension of the 
wandering must rest essentially upon a knowledge of conditions of the 
wholly primitive life of these savage peoples, and particularly upon 
certain constants of the art of navigation within the power of sailors 
whose only craft are the canoes and whose motive power is the trade- 
wind. By the combination of speech and seafaring it is possible to 
establish the tracks of migration with considerable certainty. When 
the record of the artifacts is adjusted upon these already well-estab- 
lished tracks an added degree of certitude is obtained. The trans- 
mission of specific forms of the artifacts and of particular modes of 
decoration employed thereupon is properly to be designated drift, 
because it follows the identifiable courses of this great folk-migration. 
The drift is essentially part and parcel of the culture history of the 
Polynesians; the introduction of foreign elements is a mere detail ina 
smoothly flowing movement through channels quite well defined. 
The erratics in the collections of South Sea artifacts are those objects 
which in quite modern times have been removed from their normal 
sources and have been deposited in alien communities from which they 
have been gathered by those interested in the collection of ethnica. 
