Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/401

Rh juxtaposition in the art of the Solomon Islands, and are moreover closely related by the fact that the frigate-bird, Daula, is the central figure of a wide-spread Melanesian bird-cult. It is a kind of super-bird possessed of a tindalo, or spirit, endowing it with human or superhuman powers. In representations of the frigate-bird we frequently see human attributes grafted upon the bird figure. For instance, in the carved wooden Solomon Island bowl (Fig. 6) representing a frigate-bird holding a large fish, a pair of human arms and hands are seen issuing from the bird's breast just below the neck and grasping the body of the fish.

Similarly, in a figure of the same bird with outstretched wings, represented upon the blade of a canoe-paddle (Fig. 7), an unmistakably human arm is shown arising from a kind of shoulder, in defiance of anatomical difficulties. Even bracelets are indicated upon this arm.

Again, composite forms in which the bird- and human-form are variously combined are seen in numerous instances of figures having the body of a bird combined with human head (Fig. 8), or, conversely, human body with bird's head (Fig. 9). This particular figure is said to represent Kesoko, half man half frigate-bird; the hooked beak of this bird is well indicated. In the British Museum there are two carved canoe-charms from Rubiana which are almost identical, except for the fact that whereas in the one (Fig. 10) the bird's body is surmounted by a frigate-bird's head with the gular pouch indicated; in the other (Fig. 11) the bird's head is replaced by a semi-human head, of the type familiar in the "canoe-prow gods," showing greatly exaggerated prognathism. This beak-like protrusion of the lower facial region seems clearly to have been suggested by the form of the bird's beak which it replaces.

Two other examples of human-headed birds, in the Pitt Rivers Museum, emphasize this hybridization of bird-