Pig-bone implements (Plate 51, Fig. 2).  These are the implements which are often used as forks, but they have straight edges also with which they are used as scraping knives, and they are utilised for many other purposes.  The implement, which is, I think, similar to what is commonly found in Mekeo and on the coast, is made out of the leg-bone of a pig, and is generally from 5 to 8 inches long.  One side of the bone is ground away, so as to make the implement flattish 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 club-heads, adze blades and cloth-beaters, is not generally replaced by a European iron point, as is so commonly the case in Mekeo and near the coast.  These drills are used for boring dogs’ teeth and shells and other similar hard-substanced things, but are useless for boring articles of wood or other soft substances, in which the roughly formed point would stick. [51]

Fire-making.  This is a question of process, rather than of implement, but may be dealt with here.  To produce fire, the Mafulu native takes two pieces of very dry and inflammable wood, one larger than the other, and some dry bark cloth fluff.  He then holds the smaller piece of wood and the fluff together, and rubs them on the larger piece of wood.  After four or five minutes the fluff catches fire, without bursting into actual flame, upon which the native continues the rubbing process, blowing gently upon the fluff, until the two pieces of wood begin to smoulder, and can then be blown into a sufficient flame for lighting a fire.