drawn at sunrise.' Here again there must be a symbolic or magical significance for this curious custom. Not only in Further India, but in India itself, on the one hand, and in the Malay region to the south, is kite-flying practised. It is very prevalent in Java. The several Javanese communities have each their peculiar kinds of kites, and they hold contests to prove superiority of manufacture or skill in manipulation. The old form of English kite was a Javanese pattern. Woglom says that the Javanese kites are seldom decorated, except with dirt. The Javanese, more generally than the Japanese, gamble on the results of kite competitions and kite battles. They fly them to heights of 700 to 1200 feet for display. Dr. Codrington' informs us that in Melanesia kites are used as toys in the Banks Islands, and in the New Hebrides they are made and flown at the season when the gardens are being cleared for planting. The kite is steadied by a long reed tail, and a good one will fly and hover very well. In Lepers' Island the kite is called an "eagle," and the following song is sung when flying one: "Wind! wherever you may abide, Wherever you may abide, Wind! come hither; E-u! E-u! Wind! blow strong and steady, Blow and come forth, O Wind! But the kite is put to a more utilitarian use in the Solomon Islands and Santa Cruz. Here it is flown from a canoe, and from it hangs a tangle of spiders' web or of fibre, which it drags along the surface of the water and in which fish with long slender under-jaws become entangled (Fig. 36, No. 4). F. Dillaye, Les Jeux de la Jeunesse, 1885, p. 39. R. H. Codrington, The Melanesians: Studies in their Anthropology and Folk-Lore, 1891, pp. 342, 336. 3 Loc. cit., p. 318. The Fijians know of the kite by the Polynesian name of Manumanu,“ bird," but apparently they do not fly it.' The use of the kite was widely spread in Polynesia, being recorded from the Society Islands and as far south as New Zealand. Ellis states: "The boys were very fond of the uo, or kite, which they raised to a great height. The Tahitian kite was different in shape from the kites of the English boys. It was made of light native cloth instead of paper, and formed in shape according to the fancy of its owner. In New Zealand 2 "the name of the kite is the old term for the hawk. Their figure is generally a rough imitation of the bird with its great out-spread wings; these kites are frequently made of very large dimensions of raupo leaves, a kind of sedge, neatly sewn together and kept in shape by a slight framework. The string is most expeditiously formed and lengthened at pleasure, being merely the split leaves of the flax plant [Phormium tenax]. This is a very favourite Dieffenbach says: "The kite is of triangular form, and is very neatly made of the light leaves of a sedge; its ascent is accompanied with some saying or song, such as the He karakia pakau. It is a sign of peace when it is seen flying near a village." Dieffenbach gives the words of this song, but unfortunately it is not translated. Tregear' says that the kite kahu (hawk), or pakau (wing), is made from the leaves of the raupo (Typha angustifolia). There were three kinds of kites in the remote Hervey Islands, which were either egg-shaped, club-shaped, or bird 1 Seemann, Viti, p. 45. W. Ellis, Polynesian Researches, i., 2d ed., 1831, p. 228. 3 R. Taylor, Te Ika a Maui; or, New Zealand and its Inhabitants, 1855, P. 172. E. Dieffenbach, Travels in New Zealand, ii., 1843, p. 31. 'E. Tregear, Journ. Anth. Inst., xix., p. 115. 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. Such was not my [the father's] wish; and when I intercede, She will not relent. 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 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. A KITE SONG. Call for the dance to lead off. The hill-top Atiu is covered with kites, Go on! Chorus. See, yon hill-top Atiu covered with kites- Solo. Chorus. Solo. I am a bird' of beautiful plumage. 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," Journ. Anth. Inst., ix., 1879, p. 23. |