File:The history of mankind (1896) (14577187870).jpg

Identifier: historyofmankind01ratz (find matches)
Title: The history of mankind
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Ratzel, Friedrich, 1844-1904 Butler, Arthur John, 1844-1910
Subjects: Ethnology Anthropology
Publisher: London, Macmillan and co., ltd. New York, The Macmillan co.
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Wellesley College Library

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he prettiestproductions of the art is the womens liku, a girdle woven from strips of the bastof the wau-tree (a kind of hibiscus), with the fibres of a root that grows wild, and 244 THE HISTORY OF MANKIND blades of grass. Soft mats arc made by plaiting the stalks of a fibrous plant intoone, and removing the woody portions by bending and beating. Bags andbaskets are admirably woven ; fans, too, are made either of palm leavesstrengthened at the edge and vandyked, or woven from bast. But superior to allthese are the string and the cables—the best from coco-fibre, the inferior kindsfrom the bast of the zvau-tree. In the Fiji Islands these are tastefully made upinto balls, ovals, spindles, etc. Comparison with New Caledonia shows how highEast Melanesia stands in this art. One has only to look at a New Caledonia fanbeside one from Fiji. But in New Guinea, again, very elegant woven articles ofall kinds are produced. Wood-carving again, of which we have seen specimens in the weapons, stands
Text Appearing After Image:
Wickerwork (basket, pouches, and fly-whisk), from Tongatabu. (Cook Collection,Vienna Ethnographic Museum.) highest in East Melanesia, though the west can also (as seen in the cut on p. 241)show remarkable work. Individual districts are poor in this respect: in theBanks Islands, for instance, hardly any carved human figures are to be seen. Allthe larger groups have their own subjects. The most wonderful fancy is shownin the appendages to houses and boats. In these simple artists there is a strongtendency to pass from imitation of Nature to conventionalised forms, so that thisimitation is never very successful, especially where, as in Fiji and the NewHebrides, the human form is so rarely copied. One may see this in therepresentations of the human face, in which the nose appears as a line, fallingdownwards and forwards from the projecting forehead, with strongly distended LABOUR, DWELLINGS, AND FOOD IN OCEANIA ^45 nostrils, and ending in the mouth, a cross line sharply cut back. In some

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