Manufacturing a Club.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 4124, 22 September 1883, Page 8 (Supplement)

Manufacturing a Club.

The way it is made is peculiar. The native first takes a piece of Bilttablo granite, which ho places in a slow lire of cocoa-nut shells, which give an immense heat, and allows it to become red-hot. He then, by the aid of a split bamboo, in the place of ton"-s, removes it from the tire, and begins to drop water on it, drop by drop, each drop falling exactly on the same place. That portion of the stone on which the water falls begins to crack and fly off, until the heat has gone out of the stone. He then repeats the operation until an irregular hole is formed through the centre ; he then fixes a stick through it, and takes it off to a place where there is a largo granite rock in which is a dent like a small basin. He hits the stone upon the rock until all the rou»-h corners are knocked off, and it is worn fairly round; then takes the end of the stick, and pressing the stone down into the hollow of the rock, makes the stick revolve rapidly between his hands, weighting it with other stones fastened to tho top of the stick, until that side of tiie stone is worn perfectly smooth and round. Ho then shifts tho other side of tho stone downwards, and works at that until both are smooth and evon, choosing a handlo of : tough wood about four feet long, on to which he fixes the stone with gum from the breadfruit tree, leaving about four inches protruding at one end beyond tho stone."—"Wanderings in a Wild Country ; or Three Years among tho Cannibals of New Britain." By Wilfred Powell.