Though the natives of the islands mentioned, and no doubt of many others, were still stone-boilers in Cook's time, pottery had already made its appearance in Polynesia, in districts so situated that the art may reasonably be supposed to have travelled from island to island from the Eastern Archipelago, where perhaps the Malays received it from Asia. By Cook and later explorers earthen vessels were found in the Pelew, Fiji, and Tonga groups, and in New Caledonia.[1] By this time it is likely that these and European vessels may have put an end to stone-boiling in Polynesia, so that its displacement by the introduction of pottery and metal will have taken place by the same combination of the influence of neighbouring tribes and of Europeans which have produced a similar effect in North America.
There is European evidence of the art of stone-boiling. The Finns have kept up into modern times a relic of the practice. Linnæus, on his famous Lapland Tour, in 1732, recorded the fact that in East Bothland "The Finnish liquor called Lura is prepared like other beer, except not being boiled, instead of which red-hot stones are thrown into it."[2] Moreover, the quantities of stones, evidently calcined, which are found buried in our own country, sometimes in the sites of ancient dwellings, give great probability to the inference which has been drawn from them, that they were used in cooking. It is true that their use may have been for baking in underground ovens, a practice found among races who are Stone-boilers, and others who are not. But it is actually on record that the wild Irish, of about 1600, used to warm their milk for drinking with a stone first cast into the fire.[3]
In Asia[4] I have met with no positive evidence of cookery by
- ↑ Cook, Second Voy., vol. I. p. 214; vol. ii. p. 105. Third Voy., vol. i. p. 375. Klemm, C. G., vol. iv. p. 272. Williams, 'Fiji,' vol. i. p. 69. Turner, p. 424. Mariner, vol. ii. p. 272. Keate, p. 336.
- ↑ Linnæus, Tour, vol. ii. p. 231. Such beer, called Steinbir, is made in Carinthia, by throwing hot stones into the vat. See W. O. Stanley, 'Memoirs on Ancient Dwellings in Holyhead,' p. 19. [Note to 3rd Edition.]
- ↑ J. Evans, in Archæologia, vol. xli.
- ↑ Dr. Hooker found baths of hollowed trees at Bhomsong, heated with hot stones, 'Himalayan Journals,' vol. i. p. 305. Compare a similar process in N. W. America, Tr. Eth. Soc., vol. iv. p. 290.
