Handbook to the ethnographical collections . Fig. 104. -Slieet of tapa with wooden beater and jirinting-board. Fiji. that island. Food-vessels are largely carved from wood, themost noticeable being the large kava-bowls of Fiji; the inlaidfood-bowls of the Solomons, often in bird form (fig. 105); and theelaborately carved bowls of the Admiralty Islands. Other constructed from gourds, baml)oo joints, and coconuts. The decorative art of the Melanesians, excepting the Tasmanians,is of a fairly high order, es]iecially in the Solomon Islands andNew Guinea. In both these islands human, bi
Handbook to the ethnographical collections . Fig. 104. -Slieet of tapa with wooden beater and jirinting-board. Fiji. that island. Food-vessels are largely carved from wood, themost noticeable being the large kava-bowls of Fiji; the inlaidfood-bowls of the Solomons, often in bird form (fig. 105); and theelaborately carved bowls of the Admiralty Islands. Other constructed from gourds, baml)oo joints, and coconuts. The decorative art of the Melanesians, excepting the Tasmanians,is of a fairly high order, es]iecially in the Solomon Islands andNew Guinea. In both these islands human, bird, and formsappear more or less conventionalizedjn almost every pattern (figs. ILATE Jwo cliilis and ilaiii-iiin-^liii-M Cioin SK. M.\v ( aii<l arclii])clago. [face p. 120 THE PAPUASIANS 127 13 and 14); in New Guinea 2:)redominance of human and beastforms characterizes the Papuan art, of bird and fish forms theMelanesian. In the eastern Solomons bird and fish patternspredominate, but in the most westerly islands the art resemblesrather that of the New Britain Archipelago, which, in its turn,is more closely akin to that of the Papuans. The art of the NewHebrides, Banks Islands, and Santa Cruz is mainly geometric,but that of the last is quite distinct from that of the two former. As regards war. the Fijians were the onlj^ people who possesseda definite military organization ; the profession was hereditary,and death bj violence alone gained the soul admittance to themore desirable part of the underworld. In New Britain a specialleader in war is found. Tlie weapons typical of Melanesia arethe club and the spear (though the latter is not found in the BanksIslands
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Keywords: ., bookauthorjoycetho, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookyear1910
