"There were tapes and mats of the rarest and oldest; capes and leis
and helmets and cloaks, priceless all, except the too-ancient ones,
of the feathers of the mamo, and of the iwi and the akakane and the
o-o. I saw one of the mamo cloaks that was superior to that finest
one in the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, and that they value at
between half a million and a million dollars. Goodness me, I
thought at the time, it was lucky Kanau didn't know about it.
"Such a mess of things! Carved gourds and calabashes, shell-
scrapers, nets of olona fibre, a junk of ie-ie baskets, and fish-
hooks of every bone and spoon of shell. Musical instruments of the
forgotten days--ukukes and nose flutes, and kiokios which are
likewise played with one unstoppered nostril. Taboo poi bowls and
finger bowls, left-handed adzes of the canoe gods, lava-cup lamps,
stone mortars and pestles and poi-pounders. And adzes again, a
myriad of them, beautiful ones, from an ounce in weight for the
finer carving of idols to fifteen pounds for the felling of trees,
and all with the sweetest handles I have ever beheld.
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