Smaller weapons

Obsidian knives,
from the Admiralty Islands.
Larger approx 380mm long
(Christy Collection.)

The natives of New Britain, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and Fiji, use slings for missile purposes. In New Caledonia and Niue the carefully wrought sling-stones, of a pointed oval shape, are carried in a net bag, fastened at the lower end by buttons, and hence easily emptied. The sling is a simple cord, doubled in the middle to form a seat for the stone. It is unknown in New Ireland and the Solomons; while in Tanna the boys use slings where their elders employ bows and spears. The Fijians have also short throwing-clubs, with a deeply shouldered head, like the induku of the Kaffirs. The killing-clubs of Malayta are stronger weapons of the same kind, having a carved handle, with a lump of pyrites at the lower end contained in a web of bast. To this class belong the instruments like staves, over a yard long, used in New Caledonia, originally nothing but pointed cudgels with a grip for the hand.

Knife of mother-of-pearl shell,
from the Admiralty Islands.
Approx 200mm long
(Christy Collection.)

Even before the age of iron, knives and daggers were used in hand-to-hand fighting, either formed of broken-off spear-heads or poniards of bone. Those from the Admiralty Islands are conspicuous by their breadth at the point where the blade passes into the artistically engraved handle. The so-called daggers made of ray-stings are really files. Not uncommonly the handle itself is pointed like a dagger. The poniards of bird-bone (mostly a cassowary's leg-bone), frequent in New Guinea and the neighbourhood, are simple enough; the thick end with the joint serves as grip, the other being split and worked to a point. Ornament is rare, and limited to very simple scratched work, owing to the hardness of the bone. A finish, rare among races in this stage, is given by wrapping spear-heads and knife-blades in sheaths of palm-spathe, as shown in the cuts of spears and spearheads. In conclusion we may mention the caltrops, used in Fiji and New Guinea, made of sharp splinters of bamboo stuck in the ground.

Defensive armour

Shield from Teste in New Guinea - approx. 930mm long. (Christy Collection.)

1. Wooden shield, bound with plaited rattan, with black and white pattern, from Friedrich-Wilhelm's Harbour.
2. Carved shield from Hatzfeld Harbour.
3. Wooden battle-shield from Astrolabe Bay.
4. Wooden battle-shield from Trobriand.
5. Motu-motu shield from Freshwater Bay.

Item 2 approx 1800mm long. (Berlin Museum of Ethnology.)
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The employment of defensive arms is limited. In Fiji, the New Hebrides, New Ireland, New Hanover, and the Admiralty Isles, shields are wholly absent. Among the Solomon Islanders we first meet with elongated shields of plaited reed or bamboo; the reeds placed longitudinally and woven together with fibre, while decorative patterns are woven in with black fibre, and pieces of mother-of-pearl often applied in regular figures. The grip and guards for the hands at the back are made of strips of palm-leaf. An extraordinary development, reminding us of Central Africa, is found in the shields of eastern New Guinea and the islands to the east, where specimens occur of great size, weighing up to 22 lbs. and beautifully decorated; circular, oval, or rectangular, flat or hollow, made of wood or plaited, together with the narrow Malayan kind from Salawatti. The ornamentation is original, being sometimes symmetrical, sometimes the reverse. The narrow Moluccan shields with shell-trimming have been imported, but have spread no further. Cuirasses are found on the north and south coasts of New Guinea.

A luxuriance of fancy

Weapons and Utensils from Melanesia and Micronesia
(Original print by the Bibliographisches Institut. Leipzig)
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No race possesses such a luxuriance of fancy in the case of weapons and similar articles whose purpose is narrowly limited. In the ceremonial axes of New Ireland the stone blade completely disappears beneath the accessories; faces, lizards, birds, remind us of the masks coming from the same region. Social relations, religion, festivals, partially explain this; they presume the existence of numerous insignia of rank, and as may be easily understood, weapons were the first things selected for this purpose. Much feeling for form, much industry must have gone to the making of the decorative axes from the D'Entrecasteaux Islands, shown below, with their large finely-ground stone blades. Without a comparative survey of allied objects, it would often be impossible, even in the case of those which by reason of their curves or sharper indentations look like flaming swords or horrible instruments of torture, to decide whether these weapons were evolved from clubs, paddles, or swords. But when the passion for ornament assumes such dimensions as we see in the representation below of a carved wooden shield from New Guinea, we are reminded of the exuberant fancy of nature in shaping sea-monsters or creeping plants. There is all the flavour of the tropics in them.

Axes from the D'Entrecasteaux Islands - approx 70cm top to bottom. (Christy Collection.)
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Carved dance-shield from east New Guinea - approx 585mm long. (Christy Collection.)
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