Netting.
In dealing with netting, I should begin with the making of the string; but, as I think the method adopted is not confined to the mountains, it is perhaps sufficient to refer to my previous description of thread-making in connection with the manufacture of leg-bands; though in most netting the strings are necessarily very much thicker and stronger than are the threads used for leg-bands, and they are three-stranded.
Hunting and fishing nets are made by men in a simple open form of netting, worked on the common principle of the reef knot, and having diamond-shaped holes, with a knot at each corner of each hole. I shall refer to this form of netting as “ordinary network.” The nets are made of thick, strong material, except as regards the hand fishing nets, which are made of the fine material used for making leg-bands. These nets are never coloured.
Hammocks are made by men. They are sometimes done entirely with ordinary network, and are then, I think, similar to Mekeo-made hammocks; but often only two or three lines of netting are done in this way, the rest of the net being made in a closer and finer pattern of interlacing knotless network, which is never adopted on the coast and Mekeo plains (all nets of this description found there having come down from the mountains) and which I will call “Mafulu network.”[1] I have watched the making of one of these nets, and will endeavour to describe the process. The ultimate result of the Mafulu network part of this is shown in [Plate 81].