Hanging-hook.Comb.
Fish-float.
Series of patterns, derived from the chevron or zig-zag line, which are used for decorative purposes by the Solomon Islanders. The principal steps in the series are alone indicated, the intermediary stages being often exemplified in the ornamental designs of these natives. (The dotted lines are my own).
Sunshades in the form of a peak of plaited grass bound to the forehead and projecting over the eyes are occasionally worn by the natives of Bougainville Straits, whilst fishing in canoes, in order to protect their eyes from the sun’s glare on the water. In Ugi, these sunshades are sometimes worn on gala days. They did not, however, appear to be in constant use in any part of the group which we visited.
The common decorative pattern employed by the natives of the islands that we visited was the chevron line. It is the pattern used in tattooing the face in the eastern islands; and it is represented in alternating hues of red, white, and black, on the fronts of tambu-houses. It is rudely cut on the outer border of the small shell armlets of St. Christoval, and ornaments the cooking-pots and drinking-vessels of Bougainville Straits. (See [Illustration].) In some of the shell armlets a continuous lozenge or diamond-shaped design is produced by the arrangement of the chevron lines as shown in the [woodcut]. The advance from this design to the disconnected lozenge pattern is then but an easy gradation. These chevron lines are often curiously transformed. The Z pattern of inlaid mother-of-pearl, which is shown in the [illustration] of the canoe-god, is apparently but a broken chevron line. On the heads of the Treasury spears fantastic patterns are cut out in which the chevron design is adapted to the human skeleton (See [illustration]). . . . . . I may here add that the bamboo boxes used for the betel lime are ornamented with rectilinear patterns (scratched on their surfaces) which resemble those used in ornamenting the similar lime boxes of New Guinea, Borneo, and Sumatra.[123] The ornamental dance-clubs of Bougainville Straits exactly resemble the clubs from New Ireland and possess those singular distorted representations of the human face which characterise New Ireland ornamentation.
[123] Exhibited in the British Museum Ethnological collection.
Caution is required in studying the modes of ornamentation of these islanders. The remark made by the Rev. Mr. Lawes, in reference to the women of the Motu tribe in New Guinea,[124] that they are glad to get new tattooing patterns from the printed calicoes, is equally applicable to some of the Solomon Island natives. On one occasion I was gravely informed by a native, as a fact likely to add to their interest, that some designs I was copying had this origin.
[124] Journ. Anthrop. Inst. vol. VIII., p. 369.