eaf is cylindrical and increases in thickness toward its base. Fresh leaves are substituted and pushed farther through to gradually dilate the hole to the required size.
The wearing of flowers in the ears was universal. Cook, speaking of the pierced ears of the Atiuans says, "… and in them they hung bits of the membraneous part of some plant, or stuck there an odoriferous flower, which seemed to be a species of gardenia." Cook was right about the flower, for the Gardenia, taitensis (tiare tahiti) had been carried to the various islands of the Cook group by ancestral voyagers, and it is still the favorite flower for wearing in the ear. When the ears are not pierced the flowers are held in position by placing the stem back of the ear.
Red feathers (Atiu)
Cook (20, p. 187) says of a chief in Atiu, "In his ears were large bunches of beautiful red feathers, which pointed forward. But he had no other mark, page 106or ornament, to distinguish him from the rest of the people. …" Two other chiefs wore similar ear ornaments, and a group of women dancers also wore red feathers in their ears (20, p. 188): "… we saw, at the distance of thirty yards, about twenty women, ornamented as the chiefs, with red feathers, engaged in a dance, …"
It is practically certain that the feather bunches were red parakeet feathers arranged in a rosette form by means of superimposed ring carriers. A beautiful single rosette of red parakeet feathers in the Vienna Museum (no. 2736) has no less than 30 coir cord holders bunched together like the red feather rosettes in the Aitutaki headdress (fig. 43). At first, I thought it had become detached from a headdress but after reading Cook's account, there can be little doubt that it is a feather ear ornament from Atiu.
Black feathers (Rarotonga)
A bunch of black feathers attached to the ear of a Rarotongan god (fig. 196, d) was composed of loop carriers (fig. 52). Each of the four holders of a carrier had four split feathers and six carriers were tied together with a strip of paper mulberry bast passed through the loops. One end of the bast strip was passed through the hole drilled through the back of the ear and the two ends were tied. It is probable that similar ornaments were worn by people of distinction.
Coconut Shells (Mangaia)
Reference has been made to the use of small coconut shells (vao). Gill (32, p. 337) states: "… The shell of a species of coconut producing small long nuts—their ends rubbed off on madrepore coral—were filled with fragrant flowers and leaves and worn in the slit lobes of ears of persons (males) of distinction. The lobes were marvellously distended by this practice."
Gill (28, pp. 126, 127) adds that after the leaves and flowers were put inside the nuts, the openings were carefully plugged up. He goes on to relate the story of a woman named Veve who landed on Mangaia from Aitutaki with her four children. On leaving her native island, she had her enormous ear-ornaments filled with mosquitoes so that she might hear their continual hum. She laid aside her ear ornaments to bathe in a stream at Vaikaute and later went fishing. During her absence, the mosquitoes escaped from their prison and stung two of her children to death, the other two escaping by immersing themselves in the nearby stream. Veve set fire to her house to destroy the insects but those that escaped became the ancestors of the present mosquitoes in Mangaia. A Marigaian poet referred to the story in a song commencing with the lines:page 107
Kua topa te poe The ear-ornament was i te taringa: dropped from the ear: Kua vare paa It was forgotten perhaps i Vaikaute. at Vaikaute.
Wooden cylinders (Mangaia)
Ivory Ornaments (Mangaia)
Three whale ivory (rei) ear ornaments in the British Museum are in the form of two small spheres connected with an upper circular lug to which the suspension element is attached. Two are labeled, "Hervey Islands. Phallic ear ornaments of ivory. Mangaia." These two are evidently the ones referred to by Gill (33, p. 253) in a work on Mangaia. "The chiefs, whether married or not, often wore phallic ear or