Fishhooks may be divided into simple hooks, made from one piece of material, and composite hooks, made of two pieces joined by a lashing. The materials are shell, bone or ivory, turtle shell, and wood. Among the material collected from caves and fish shrines are pieces of bone which illustrate the various stages in making bone hooks.

Human long bones, particularly the thigh bone, were cut in lengths probably with sharp-edged pieces of stone flakes. The lengths were cut into rectangular pieces to correspond with the length and width of the proposed hook.

The lower angles were rounded off to form the outer curve of the bend, and the edges were smoothed off with coral rasps. A hole was then drilled through the piece and enlarged to correspond, more or less, with the inner edge of the bend. In larger hooks a second hole was drilled above the first and enlarged to cut into the upper margin of the lower hole. The projecting points at the sides left by the two holes were cut away, as well as the part above the second hole. The inner, open part was smoothed and shaped with small coral rasps or files, and the hook took shape with a lower curved bend connecting two limbs. The upper ends of the two limbs were then shaped, one for the cord attachment of the line and the other to form the functioning point. The shape of the hook depended on the treatment of the inner edges of the two limbs. If the two limbs were left fairly straight, a U-shaped form was produced If the two limbs were evenly curved, a circular form resulted in a straight limb and a curved limb produced a subcircular form

The subcircular form is common in small shell hooks, bone hooks, and turtle-shell hooks. Hawaiians believed that fishhooks made from bones of people without hair on their bodies, who were termed olohe, were more attractive to fish than hooks from normal bones. Thus the olohe individuals ran the risk of being prematurely dispatched to supply the luck bringing material.
 

Different terms have been applied by various authors to the same parts of a hook. Therefore, to avoid confusion, the terminology used in this work is illustrated in. Hawaiian terms vary for the different islands not only as regards the parts of a hook but as to the different forms of the hooks. In fact, both malo and Kamakau give so many names which cannot be correlated with actual hooks that it would serve no useful purpose to enumerate them.