The Coming of the Maori
The Origin of Polynesian Forms
The Origin of Polynesian Forms
The ancestors of the Polynesians must have made various forms of adzes before they left Indonesia on their eastward movement through Micronesia. On the volcanic islands such as Truk, Ponape, and Kusaie, they had basalt with which to reproduce the forms they were already acquainted with. However, the Marshalls and the Gilberts at the eastern end of Micronesia were atolls without any basalt. It may be assumed that the Polynesian ancestors spent some time in the eastern atolls before they moved further east. The stone adzes they carried with them from the last volcanic island must have worn out, thus forcing them to make adzes of shell. The shell material made it difficult, if not impossible, to reproduce the various forms of the basaltic adzes which they had previously made. Thus the lack of raw material created a gap in the direct transmission of ancestral forms of basaltic adzes from Indonesia. When the Polynesian ancestors reached Samoa and the Society Islands, the abundant supply of basalt enabled them to discard shell in the manufacture of adzes. The abundance of suitable material, however, could not revive the memory of forms they had never seen, let alone made. It would seem that they had to start all over again with the making of basalt adzes after they reached Polynesia. This may be partly the reason for the divergence of the popular forms of adzes made in the different groups of islands.
Fig. 36. Adze subgroups.
a, quadrangular, untanged; b, quadrangular, tanged; c, triangular, untanged; d, triangular, tanged; e, inverted triangular, untanged; f, inverted triangular, tanged.