The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea by Robert Wood Williamson
page 78 of 414 (18%)
page 78 of 414 (18%)
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in section, one side (the outside unground part of the bone) being
somewhat convex, and the other (where the bone has been ground away) being rather concave. Some of the joint end of the bone is left to serve as a handle; and from this the bone is made to narrow down to a blunt, rather flattish and rounded point, somewhat like that of a pointed paper-cutter. The side edge is used for scraping, and the point for sticking into things. Smoking pipes are in the ordinary well-known form of Mekeo and the coast, being made of sections of bamboo stem in which the natural intersecting node near the mouthpiece end is bored and the node at the other end is left closed, and between these two nodes, near to the closed one, is a flute-like hole, in which is placed the cigarette of tobacco wrapped up in a leaf. They are, however, generally not ornamented; or, if they are so, it is merely in a simple geometric pattern of straight lines. I obtained one pipe (Plate 51, Fig. 1) of an unusual type, being much smaller than is usual. A special feature of this pipe is its decoration, which includes groups of concentric circles. This is the only example of a curved line which I ever met with among the Mafulu villages, and it is probable that it had not been made there. Boring drills (Plate 51, Fig. 4) are also similar to those of Mekeo and the coast, except that there the fly-wheel is, I think, usually a horizontal circular disc, through the centre of which the upright shaft of the implement passes, whereas in the Mafulu boring instrument the fly-wheel, through which the shaft passes, is a rudely cut flat horizontal piece of wood about 9 or 10 inches long, 2 inches broad, and half an inch or less thick, and also that in Mafulu the native point, made out of a pointed fragment of the stone used for making |
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