The Mafulu comb (Plate 30, Fig. 2) differs in construction from the wooden combs, all made in one piece, which are commonly used in Mekeo.  It is made of four, five, or six thin pieces of wood, which are left blunt at one end, but are sharpened to points at the other.  These are bound together with straw-like work, sometimes beautifully done, the binding being nearly always near to the blunt ends, though it is sometimes almost in the middle. [45] The combs so made are flat, with the blunt ends converging and generally fastened together, and the long sharp ends, which are the ends to be inserted into the hair, spreading outwards.  The bound-up blunt ends are in fact a point, or, say, half an inch or less (occasionally more) across.  The spread of the sharp ends varies from 1 to 2 inches or more.  The straw-like binding may be light or dark brown, or partly one and partly the other.  Sometimes only the two outside prongs meet together at the blunt end, and the inner prongs do not extend much, or at all, beyond the upper edge of the straw-like work binding.  The fastening together of the blunt converging tips is done sometimes with native thread just at the tips, and sometimes with a little straw work rather further down; occasionally it is missing altogether.  The comb figured is not so converging at the blunt ends or so spreading at the sharp ends as is usual, and its blunt ends are not bound together.  These combs are only worn by men; they are commonly worn in front, projecting forwards over the forehead, as is done in Mekeo; but they are also worn at the back of the head, projecting sideways to either right or left.  A feather (generally a white cockatoo feather), or sometimes two feathers, are often inserted into the straw-like work of the comb, so as to stand up vertically when the comb is worn, and there wave, or rather wag, backwards and forwards in the wind.  I could not learn any significance in these feathers, such as applies to many of the upright head feathers worn by the young men of Mekeo.  The comb is worn by several of the men figured in Plate 9, one of them wearing it in front and the others having it standing out sideways at the back.

The almost universal type of earring (Plate 20, Fig. 1), varying from 2 to 3 inches in circumference, is made out of the tail of the cuscus.  The ring is made by removing the hair from the animal’s tail, drying the tail, and fastening the pointed end into or on to the blunt cut-off stump end, tying them firmly together.  The ring is then bound closely round with the yellow and brown material (Dendrobium) of belt No. 6; but a space of 1 or 2 inches is generally left uncovered at the part where the two ends of the tail are fastened together.  The simplest form is a single earring, which passes through the hole in the ear; but I have seen two rings hanging to the ear; and frequently a second ring is hung on to the first, and often a third to the second, and sometimes a fourth to the third; or perhaps, instead of the fourth