Page:The disappearance of useful arts.djvu/11

115 end use it only to shoot pigeons. In New Hanover the bow and arrow is said to be now unknown and in the Admiralty Islands it has hitherto only been known as a toy, though the Hamburg Expedition has recently discovered a bow once used in war.

There is clear evidence, however, that in some of these islands the use of the bow in war was once more general. The ancient voyagers record that the natives of these islands shot at them with arrows and there is some evidence in favour of a progressive diminution in the importance of this weapon. Again, though the bow was till recently used in war in the British Solomons, it was certainly a less important weapon than when the islands were visited by the Spaniards two centuries earlier.

In many parts of New Guinea, and especially among the people who speak languages of the Melanesian family, the bow and arrow is now absent, or used only as a toy or to shoot birds. In this case there is more justification for the view that the bow has been introduced recently, for in parts of German New Guinea the bows and arrows used by the coastal people to shoot birds are obtained from the natives of the interior, while on the south coast of British New Guinea they are obtained from the people of the Papuan Gulf.

In German New Guinea, however, a fact has been recorded which points clearly to the bow and arrow being a survival rather than a recently introduced element of culture.