Weapons and Implements

Obsidian axes from Easter Island - longer axe approx.300mm. (British Museum.)
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The weapons and utensils of the Polynesians are remarkably varied and abundant; but among the Melanesians we meet with a still more copious display of inventiveness and artistic ingenuity. The absence of iron is especially noticeable. When Europeans first came into contact with Polynesians, they found them compelled to make up for the want of metals by using stones, bones, and shells. Few of the Polynesian islands possess metallic ores. On the coral islands this might be expected, but it is also true in most cases of the volcanic formations. But the level of culture among these races is such as to make us believe that if they had discovered the raw material they would have advanced to the use of the metals. With stone, bones, teeth, wood, they have achieved all that was possible. The implements of navigation and fishery, the boats and hooks, are perfect of their kind, and show evidence not only of cleverness but of the inventive faculty. Unlike the Australians and Bushmen, as soon as they get iron they know what to do with it.

Adze with carved helve, probably from New Zealand.
(British Museum.)
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Naturally, iron was also converted to purposes of ornament; and as the value of glass beads had already dropped considerably, iron ware of all kinds remained the leading article of European trade. They made it available at first in the forms to which they had long been accustomed, putting pieces of iron hoop into their axes in place of Tridacna shells, but retaining in other respects the customary form of the implement. On Ponape, where we can date the end of the Stone Age about the beginning of the twenties of the present century, iron blades were still always fixed in the lemon-wood handles as the stone had been; but the old stone ones were kept, as sacred relics, in the most secret corners of the house.

Working in Stone

Axe from Hawaii - longest dimension approx.785mm. (Christy Collection.)
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For all heavy implements, especially hammers, adzes, and axes, stone was the most valuable material. It was less so for spears, and stone arrowheads were never in use. In Polynesian and Melanesian stone-axes we are struck at once by the fact of their not being perforated, and by the rudimentary workmanship of the outline, though careful rounding and polishing are not unknown. Even with the choicest material and the most careful workmanship these axes do not go far beyond the simple wedge; and thus we seldom find them ground either hollow in the neck for attachment, or to a curve in the sides.

Hatchet from the Marquesas
Approx 420mm top to bottom.
(Christy Collection.)

The simplest on the whole are the New Zealand axes or adzes; often plain rectangles, with the edge ground not in a curve, but angular. Even in the very large and handsome axes from Hawaii the cutting is rough so far as the rows of string which fasten the head to the handle extend. But the rudest of all are the hatchets of the Easter Islanders, resembling rather knives, "knapped" from obsidian or lava, very broad in the blade and short in the handle.

The axes of New Guinea and the neighbouring islands are often not inferior to these in size, but are more rounded; being fastened not on but into the handle. The Hawaiian axes, 8 to 16 inches long in the blade, are in size and shape more like those of New Zealand, but are flattened off where they are laid against the helve. Long, narrow, chisel-like stone blades are also found in this region; while the large ornamental axes of the Hervey Islands have thin blades of basalt of a spade-shape, often somewhat curved. The fitting of the axe was everywhere essentially similar. Those which Cook brought from Tahiti consisted of a wooden handle with an appendage like a heel projecting behind; the stone-axe, flat above and two-edged underneath, is attached to the front part, which falls away at a slant, by means of a string which is first wound round the handle, then crosswise over the blade and the projection.

Obsidian spear-head from Easter Island
Approx 125mm top to bottom.
(British Museum.)

Much care is devoted to the winding of this string, notably by the Hervey Islanders; though, except in the case of ornamental axes, the handle is not much smoothed. Of Micronesian axes the greater number have blades of shell, chiefly from Terebra maculata and Tridacna gigas; the broad back-bones of tortoises are also used. Curiously enough the Micronesians, as on Ponape, overlooked their admirably adapted stone, never getting beyond shells. In the Marshall Islands the adze with semicircular shell-blade was preferred to the iron adze for hollowing out canoes. The polishing of the blade with sand or pumice is the task of the old men.