That “Knuckleduster"

MR. J. M. CLIFT, of the Solomon Islands, writes as follows from Conda mine, Central Queensland: The Solomon Islands “Knuckleduster” illustrated in your issue of October is really a breast-pendant, made from clam shell and probably from fossil clam shell, or clam shell found in the forest. It was, in all probability, found by the native la bourer (who is said to have used it as a knuckle-duster) at the site of an old native grave. Your correspondent was looking for trouble in confiscating it. It is not, in any sense, a weapon.

The Director of the Queensland Museum, writing to Mr. Clift, says: “In Edge Partington’s Ethnographical Album of the Pacific at least five types of pendant ornaments from the Solomon Islands are figured, but no one of these is identical with the con tours and cuttings of your specimen.

Obviously they are of the same type, in the broad sense, however. We have a few clam shell specimens from the Solomons in our collections, but no pendants. Evi dently the qjam shell, which is easily ob tainable, was regularly used for adzes, ornaments, etc. We have no native names available for any of these.”