shaped. As the latter were more difficult to make, they were scarce and justly admired by the childish old men who delighted to fly them on the hill-tops of Mangaia. Besides a terminal bunch of feathers, the long tail of these kites was decorated respectively with four, six, or three bunches of yellow ti leaves. The four bunches of the egg-like kite represent a constellation called the "Twins and their parents "(Piriereua ma), about which an interesting myth is given by the Rev. Dr. Wyatt Gill.' The only children of Potiki were twins, a girl named Piri-ere-ua, or "Inseparable," and a boy. Their mother, Tarakorekore, was a great scold and gave them no peace. On one occasion when their mother would not give them some fish they ran away and leaped up into the sky, where they were followed by their parents, who continually chase but can never overtake them. SONG OF THE TWINS. Wherefore fled the children of Tarakorekore? Anger at the cooked fish of Potiki. They stealthily rose, and ran and fled for ever. Alas! that a mother should thus ill-treat her children. She thrashes them-is always at it. If one sleeps at Karang or elsewhere, Still there is no peace-only threats and blows. The six bunches denote the Pleiades; this beautiful constellation was of extreme importance in heathenism, as its appearance at sunset on the eastern horizon determined the commencement of the new year, which is about the middle of December. Dr. Gill gives the mythical account of the origin of the group. The three bunches represent "The 1 Myths and Songs, p. 40. 2 2 Loc. cit., p. 43. Three" (Tau-toru), that is, the three bright stars forming Orion's Belt. The tapa of which the kites were made was decorated with devices appropriate to the tribe of the maker. A tail with six bunches of leaves was about twenty fathoms (one hundred and twenty feet) in length. The origin of kite-flying is thus accounted for. The god Tane, the Giver of food, once challenged his eldest brother Rongo, the Resounder, whose home is in the shades, to a kite-flying match. But the issue of this trial of skill was the utter discomfiture of Tane by Rongo, who had secretly provided himself with an enormous quantity of string. This contest is the subject of a poem composed by Koroa about 1814 A.D.' Solo. Chorus. A KITE SONG. Call for the dance to lead off. The hill-top Atiu is covered with kites, Dance away! Go on! See, yon hill-top Atiu covered with kites- Solo. Aye. Chorus. I am a bird' of beautiful plumage. Solo. Chorus. Solo. Cleave, then, the dark clouds. Once Tane and Rongo tried their skill, Solo. Who was beaten? Thus mortals have acquired this agreeable pastime, the condition of each game being that the first kite that mounts the sky should be sacred to and should bear the name of Rongo, the divine patron of the art. The names of all subsequent kites were indifferent. Children's kites were, and still are, extemporised out of the leaves of the gigantic chestnut tree. Sometimes one sees a boy-but it is no longer, as in the olden time, the grandfathers-flying a properly made kite. Elsewhere Dr. Gill gives a Mangaian legend about kites which is about three hundred and sixty years old, and with it "The Song of the Twin Kites." Kites are said, as I have previously mentioned, to have been invented by the Chinese General, Han-Sin, about 200 B.C. There is no reason to disbelieve that Han-Sin employed kites for the purpose stated, but the undoubted religious character of kite-flying in so many places suggests rather that this is not at all likely to have been the origin of the custom. Probably we shall never know how the kite first originated -it may have been independently invented in several places, but this is not by any means certain. We Europeans certainly learnt the art of kite-flying from South or Eastern Asia.' The divine origin of kites in spirit-land, according to the ancient Mangaian myth, points to its having been an ancestral custom, and as kite-flying, accompanied with the singing of mythical chants, appears to be widely spread in the Pacific, we may safely regard the custom as not having various independent centres of origin in Oceania, but as 1 W. Wyatt Gill, From Darkness to Light in Polynesia, with Illustrative Clan Songs, London, 1849, p. 39. Cf. also Life in the Southern Isles, by the same author, p. 64. 2 E. B. Tylor, "Remarks on the Geographical Distribution of Games," Fourn. Anth. Inst., ix., 1879, p. 23. having been brought by the Oceanic peoples in their wanderings from the Malay Archipelago. Dr. Gill believes that the Polynesians first arrived in the Hervey Islands some two or three hundred years ago, and that their swarming from Savai'i took place some five or six centuries ago.' How and when their ancestors got to the Samoan group is still very problematical. An additional argument in favour of the natives of the Hervey group bringing their kites with them is found in the "Plan of the Winds" as handed down by the ancient priests, which, with slight variations, is known from many other of the Oceanic groups. The number of windholes in this plan exactly corresponds with the points of the mariner's compass. In the olden times great stress was laid on this knowledge for the purpose of fishing, and espe cially for the long sea voyages which these adventurous navigators undertook from group to group. The Chinese are credited with having invented the mariner's compass long anterior to the Christian era. I should not be surprised if, ultimately, it was found to be the case that the compass, with certain other elements of Chinese culture, was brought to that country by a maritime people who were early merged into the general population of that mixed people, and who have subsequently been forgotten. It was known to the Arabs in medieval times, and from them, through the crusaders, the knowledge spread over Europe. As Dr. Gill points out, the absence of iron throughout Polynesia would easily account for the loss of the magnet, but the plan of the card was perpetuated. Thus once more our attention is directed towards Eastern Asia, not only as the headquarters, but also as the place of origin, of the kite. It may yet be shown that it actually originated among the Indonesian stock before the Polynesians had swarmed off from the so-called Malay Archipelago 1 Myths and Songs, p. 167. 2 Ibid., p. 319. "The form of kite from which the 'parakite' is an evolution is the general form of the Asiatic kite, substantially a square, whereof the two diagonals are respectively horizontal and vertical with a convex windward side, the convexity produced by a third transverse member which is curved upward as well as to the windward face. The Woglom parakite flies without a tail, and will not fly properly with one. With all our vaunted progress and science we have not so very much to pride ourselves upon even in this latest development of military tactics; for we are, after all, only following in the footsteps of the Chinese and Japanese. Kites are said to have been invented by the Chinese General, Han-Sin, about 200 B. C. He flew in the air figures of different forms and colours, and thus signalled from a besieged town to the army that was coming to his succour.' In a war with Japan, some four hundred years ago, a Korean general encouraged his dispirited soldiers, who were discouraged by the appearance of falling stars, by secretly making a kite, to which he attached a small lantern, and one dark night he sent it up. The soldiers accepted this as an auspicious omen, and renewed the struggle with increased energy. Another general flew a kite across an impassable stream; it lodged in a tree on the other side, and by its means he pulled a strong cord across and ultimately made a bridge. Ui Shosetsu, the Japanese who tried to upset the Tokugawa government in the seventeenth century, made a large kite, to which he fastened himself, and, being carried up into the air, he was enabled to overlook the castle of Yedo. A famous Japanese robber, Ishikawa Goemon, in the sixteenth century, attempted by mounting on a kite to steal the two celebrated solid golden fish, which, as finials, adorned two spires of the great castle of Nagoya. The fish 1 Loc. cit., p. 16. F. Dillaye, Les Jeux de la Jeunesse, 1885, p. 34. |