Fig. 37.—A, B. Sketches of two stages of the “bird bracket” of two spatulas, probably from the Woodlarks, in the author’s collection, C, D. Analogous details from canoe carvings—C. From a photograph; D. From a specimen in the Edinburgh Museum. Not drawn to the same scale.
Some spatulas have small lateral adjuncts or “brackets,” as I have elsewhere termed them. In spatulas which come, I believe, from the Trobriands and Woodlarks, these brackets are often carved to represent two birds’ heads, whose necks are united together over their heads (Fig. [37], A). I have examples of these showing a degeneration into a simple scroll (Fig. [37], B). The same is taking place on a club (Fig. [38]), where several phases of modification are illustrated, one result of which is that the beaks break away from their respective heads; the design in the left-hand lower corner is clearly an extreme stage, where each beak is represented by two small marks. This can be compared with the design in the right-hand lower corner of Fig. [39], where further simplification has occurred. The mark in the centre of the design is the relic of the four which occur in the last figure, and these are the disrupted remains of the beaks of the two birds. The other spirals in this figure are serial repetitions of the involved bird’s eye of the lower design; the limitation of these within narrow bands causes their elongation, and from these we are led to the concentric ovals. All the concentric ovals met with in this district may not have been arrived at in this manner, but those in Fig. [39] appear to have had this origin.
Figs. 38 and 39.—Rubbings of the decorations of clubs in the Dublin Museum; one-third natural size.
To return again to Fig. [37], in A and B we have two phases of the bird-bracket on spatulas; C and D are analogous designs in which the birds’ beaks are also united; these are details from canoe carvings.
Fig. 40.—Rubbing of the central longitudinal band of a club from the D’Entrecasteaux, in the Edinburgh Museum; one-third natural size.