The “bow-drill,” armed with a steel point, was employed by Mule, the Treasury chief, in piercing the holes for the rattan-like thongs in the planks of his canoes. This was the only “bow-drill” that came under my notice, and I could not tempt its owner to part with it. In the British Museum Collection, however, there are two smaller tools of this kind from other islands of the group. Without describing it, I may remark that a similar “bow-drill” is figured in Commodore Wilkes’ account of the Bowditch Islanders,[41] by Dr. G. Turner[42] in his account of the Samoans, and by Signor D’Albertis in his book on New Guinea.[43] The history of the “bow-drill,” as we learn from Dr. Tylor,[44] is an interesting one. It originated with the “fire-drill,” which is simply a pointed piece of wood that is twirled between the hands. This was then made more efficacious by winding a cord around it, when it became a “cord-drill.” By substituting for the cord a bow with a loose string, a still more useful tool was obtained: and from this simple form of “bow-drill” the Pacific islanders have obtained the improved boring-tool they now employ.
[41] “Narr. U. S. Expl. Exped.,” vol. v., p. 17.
[42] “Nineteen years in Polynesia,” p. 273.
[44] “Early History of Mankind:” pp. 237-246.
I should here allude to the round stones, rather larger than a cricket-ball, which are employed as “cooking-stones” and for cracking the hard kanary-nuts. They are to be seen in the majority of the dwellings in the eastern islands; and they often mark the sites of old villages and the temporary homes of fishing-parties.
The grinding slabs and blocks of rock, which were used for rubbing down the stone axes, are still to be seen in the coast villages, their surfaces being sometimes worn into a hollow. At present these blocks are used for grinding down the shell bead-money and for sharpening the iron tools. I have sometimes come upon them marking the position of an old village, the site of which had been long concealed by the growth of trees and scrub. In some islands where it is not possible to obtain stones of a sufficient hardness, these blocks have been transported from considerable distances. A large block of a crystalline trap-rock, more than a third of a ton in weight, which now lies on the reef-flat in the vicinity of the village of Vanatoga on the east side of Santa Anna, was originally brought down from the summit of the island to be used as a grinding block. Slabs of a quartz-diorite, which is found in the north-west part of Alu, and which is much valued for its hardness, have been transported in canoes to Treasury Island more than twenty miles away and to the other islands of the Straits. From their size, they would weigh usually five or six hundredweight.