Note 12 — Chapter XV

This celt measures 9½ inches long by 3-3/8 inches wide in the broadest part, made of an olive-green stone with grey longitudinal veins, and beautifully polished. It was clear that it had come from another part of the Pacific, for the Tongan celts are wedge-shaped, angular, and roughly made. Sir William Macgregor, who saw it on my return to England, at once pronounced it to be from New Guinea, and identified the stone as belonging to the quarry that he had discovered in Woodlark Island. All that Fatafehi could say was that it had been for generations in his family, and if this was true, the celt might be used as evidence of a Tongan migration from the west, for there were no whalers or sandalwooders before 1790; but there have been Tongan teachers working in New Guinea, and he may have been mistaken about its age.