These figures, which almost cover the handle of a Mangaian paddle or adze, are obviously related to the female forms that are carved on the terminal of its shaft (Figs. [127], [128]), and are morphologically derived from them by a process of evolution.
Fig. 126.—Rubbing of part of the decoration of a Mangaian symbolic paddle, Norwich Museum. Natural size.
The headless figures are quite recognisable in Fig. [125], A, but the fore-arms and shanks of each of them are absent, their places being taken by the upper arms and thighs of the contiguous figures. In B the serial individuals are separated by narrow vertical clefts; the latter persist in C, but the two boundary lines between the rows of figures are fused into a single line.
In Fig. [126] we have a large area (the blade of a paddle) divided into a number of parallel lines between which are diamonds, which may or may not be connected by horizontal lines. A careful inspection will show that the vertical lines are continuous body-lines; the horizontal lines are the same as those in Fig. [125], A, but the two lines are fused into one; the zigzags are clearly limbs. The absence of the horizontal lines simplifies the pattern, and so each diamond consists in its upper part of the leg, and in its lower part of the arms of human figures whose bodies are represented by the vertical lines.
The pattern in the lower half of Fig. [127] can be derived from the last by the introduction of an intermediate series of vertical lines.
Curvilinear patterns, as in the lower part of Fig. [128], are common on objects from these islands; they are evidently derived from the thighs of serial human forms, as in Fig. [127], and Plate [VI.], Fig. 13.
