File:Handbook to the ethnographical collections (1910) (14780188251).jpg

Identifier: handbooktoethnog00brit (find matches)
Title: Handbook to the ethnographical collections
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: British Museum. Dept. of British and Mediaeval Antiquities and Ethnography Joyce, Thomas Athol, 1878-1942 Dalton, O. M. (Ormonde Maddock), 1866-1945
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Publisher: (London) : Printed by order of the Trustees
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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d in south-eastNew Guinea, but the natives do not know their use and regardthem as charms ; in fact the food of the present-day native doesnot require such implements in its preparation. Obsidian, whereit occurs, and sharks teeth are used in carving, and shells andbamboo splinters as knives. The best pottery is made in Fiji (fig. 103) and New Guinea ; thepots of the former exhibit groat variety of shape, and are coveredwith vegetable varnish ; in New Guinea the Motu people are the 126 OQ^ANIA best potters, but none of the present-day ware equals the fragmentswhich are dug uyi in great (juautities in several localities on thesouth-east end of the island. Pottery is also made in NewCaledonia, one of the New Hebrides (Espiritu Santo), and iheAdmiralty Islands. Bark-cloth (fig. 104) is manufactured in mostislands, but nowhere attains the excellence of the best PolynesianfcqM (see p. 149). Looms are found in Santa Cruz, and wereformerly used by the Banks Islanders, but are now obsolete in
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Fig. 104. -Slieet of tapa with wooden beater and jirinting-board. Fiji. that island. Food-vessels are largely carved from wood, themost noticeable being the large kava-bowls of Fiji; the inlaidfood-bowls of the Solomons, often in bird form (fig. 105); and theelaborately carved bowls of the Admiralty Islands. Other ve.sselsare constructed from gourds, baml)oo joints, and coconuts. The decorative art of the Melanesians, excepting the Tasmanians,is of a fairly high order, es)iecially in the Solomon Islands andNew Guinea. In both these islands human, bird, and fi.sh formsappear more or less conventionalizedjn almost every pattern (figs. ILATE VI.

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