A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 by Robert Kerr

R >> Robert Kerr >> A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12

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This evening Dr Solander lent his knife to one of these women, who
neglected to return it, and the next morning Mr Banks's also was
missing; upon this occasion I must bear my testimony, that the people of
this country, of all ranks, men and women, are the arrantest thieves
upon the face of the earth: The very day after we arrived here, when
they came on board us, the chiefs were employed in stealing what they
could in the cabin, and their dependants were no less industrious in
other parts of the ship; they snatched up every thing that it was
possible for them to secrete, till they got on shore, even to the glass
ports, two of which they carried off undetected. Tubourai Tamaide was
the only one except Tootahah who had not been found guilty, and the
presumption, arising from this circumstance, that he was exempt from a
vice, of which the whole nation besides were guilty, could not be
supposed to outweigh strong appearances to the contrary. Mr Banks
therefore, though not without some reluctance, accused him of having
stolen his knife: He solemnly and steadily denied that he knew any thing
of it; upon which Mr Banks made him understand, that whoever had taken
it, he was determined to have it returned: Upon this resolute
declaration, one of the natives who was present produced a rag in which
three knives were very carefully tied up. One was that which Dr Solander
had lent to the woman, another was a table knife belonging to me, and
the owner of the third was not known. With these the chief immediately
set out in order to make restitution of them to their owners at the
tents. Mr Banks remained with the women, who expressed great
apprehensions that some mischief was designed against their lord. When
he came to the tents he restored one of the knives to Dr Solander and
another to me, the third not being owned, and then began to search for
Mr Banks's in all the places where he had ever seen it. After some
time, one of Mr Banks's servants, understanding what he was about,
immediately fetched his master's knife, which it seems he had laid by
the day before, and till now knew nothing of its having been missed.
Tubourai Tamaide, upon this demonstration of his innocence, expressed
the strongest emotions of mind, both in his looks and gestures; the
tears started from his eyes, and he made signs with the knife, that, if
he was ever guilty of such an action as had been imputed to him, he
would submit to have his throat cut. He then rushed out of the lines,
and returned hastily to Mr Banks, with a countenance that severely
reproached him with his suspicions. Mr Banks soon understood that the
knife had been received from his servant, and was scarcely, less
affected at what had happened than the chief; he felt himself to be the
guilty person, and was very desirous to atone for his fault. The poor
Indian, however violent his passions, was a stranger to sullen
resentment; and upon Mr Banks's spending a little time familiarly with
him, and making him a few trifling presents, he forgot the wrong that
had been done him, and was perfectly reconciled.

Upon this occasion it may be observed, that these people have a
knowledge of right and wrong from the mere dictates of natural
conscience; and involuntarily condemn themselves when they do that to
others, which they would condemn others for doing to them. That Tubourai
Tamaide felt the force of moral obligation is certain; for the
imputation of an action which he considered as indifferent, would not,
when it appeared to be groundless, have moved him with such excess of
passion. We must indeed estimate the virtue of these people, by the
conformity of their conduct to what in their opinion is right; but we
must not hastily conclude that theft is a testimony of the same
depravity in them that it is in us, in the instances in which our people
were sufferers by their dishonesty; for their temptation was such, as to
surmount would be considered as a proof of uncommon integrity among
those who have more knowledge, better principles, and stronger motives
to resist, the temptations of illicit advantage: An Indian among penny
knives, and beads, or even nails and broken glass, is in the same state
of trial with the meanest servant in Europe among unlocked coffers of
jewels and gold.

On the 26th, I mounted six swivel guns upon the fort, which I was sorry
to see struck the natives with dread: Some fishermen who lived upon the
point removed farther off, and Owhaw told us, by signs, that in four
days we should fire great guns.

On the 27th, Tabourai Tamaide, with a friend, who eat with a voracity
that I never saw before, and the three women that usually attended him,
whose names were TERAPO, TIRAO, and OMIE, dined at the fort: In the
evening they; took their leave, and set out for the house which Tubourai
Tamaide had set up in the skirts of the wood; but in less than a quarter
of an hour, he returned in great emotion, and hastily seizing Mr Banks's
arm, made signs that he should follow him. Mr Banks immediately
complied, and they soon came up to a place where they found the ship's
butcher, with a reaping-hook in his hand: Here the chief stopped, and,
in a transport of rage which rendered his signs scarcely intelligible,
intimated that the butcher had threatened, or attempted, to cut his
wife's throat with the reaping-hook. Mr Banks then signified to him,
that if he could fully explain the offence, the man should be punished.
Upon this he became more calm, and made Mr Banks understand that the
offender, having taken a fancy to a stone hatchet which lay in his
house, had offered to purchase it of his wife for a nail: That she
having refused to part with it upon any terms, he had catched it up, and
throwing down the nail, threatened to cut her throat if she made any
resistance: To prove this charge the hatchet and the nail were produced,
and the butcher had so little to say in his defence that there was not
the least reason to doubt of its truth.

Mr Banks having reported this matter to me, I took an opportunity, when
the chief and his women, with other Indians, were on board the ship, to
call up the butcher, and after a recapitulation of the charge and the
proof, I gave orders that he should be punished, as well to prevent
other offences of the same kind, as to acquit Mr Banks of his promise;
the Indians saw him stripped and tied up to the rigging with a fixed
attention, waiting in silent suspense for the event; but as soon as the
first stroke was given, they interfered with great agitation, earnestly
entreating that the rest of the punishment might be remitted: To this,
however, for many reasons, I could not consent, and when they found that
they could not prevail by their intercession, they gave vent to their
pity by tears.

Their tears, indeed, like those of children, were always ready to
express any passion that was strongly excited, and, like those of
children, they also appeared to be forgotten as soon as shed; of which
the following, among many others, is a remarkable instance. Very early
in the morning of the 28th, even before it was day, a great number of
them came down to the fort, and Terapo being observed among the women on
the outside of the gate, Mr Banks went out and brought her in; he saw
that the tears then stood in her eyes, and as soon as she entered they
began to flow in great abundance: He enquired earnestly the cause, but
instead of answering, she took from under her garment a shark's tooth,
and struck it six or seven times into her head with great force; a
profusion of blood followed, and she talked loud, but in a most
melancholy tone, for some minutes, without at all regarding his
enquiries, which he repeated with still more impatience and concern,
while the other Indians, to his great surprise, talked and laughed,
without taking the least notice of her distress. But her own behaviour
was still more extraordinary. As soon as the bleeding was over, she
looked up with a smile, and began to collect some small pieces of cloth,
which during her bleeding she had thrown down to catch the blood; as
soon as she had picked them all up, she carried them out of the tent,
and threw them into the sea, carefully dispersing them abroad, as if she
wished to prevent the sight of them from reviving the remembrance of
what she had done. She then plunged into the river, and after having
washed her whole body, returned to the tents with the same gaiety and
cheerfulness as if nothing had happened.

It is not indeed strange that the sorrows of these artless people should
be transient, any more than that their passions should be suddenly and
strongly expressed: What they feel they have never been taught either to
disguise or suppress, and having no habits of thinking which perpetually
recal the past, and anticipate the future, they are affected by all the
changes of the passing hour, and reflect the colour of the time, however
frequently it may vary: They have no project which is to be pursued from
day to day, the subject of unremitted anxiety and solicitude, that first
rushes into the mind when they awake in the morning, and is last
dismissed when they sleep at night. Yet if we admit that they are upon
the whole happier than we, we must admit that the child is happier than
the man, and that we are losers by the perfection of our nature, the
increase of our knowledge, and the enlargement of our views.

Canoes were continually coming in during all this fore-noon, and the
tents at the fort were crowded with people of both sexes from different
parts of the island. I was myself busy on board the ship, but Mr
Mollineux, our master, who was one of those that made the last voyage in
the Dolphin, went on shore. As soon as he entered Mr Banks's tent he
fixed his eyes upon one of the women, who was sitting there with great
composure among the rest, and immediately declared her to be the person
who at that time was supposed to be the queen of the island; she also,
at the same time, acknowledging him to be one of the strangers whom she
had seen before. The attention of all present was now diverted from
every other object, and wholly engaged in considering a person who had
made so distinguished a figure in the accounts that had been given of
this island by its first discoverers; and we soon learnt that her name
was OBEREA. She seemed to be about forty years of age, and was not only
tall, but of a large make; her skin was white, and there was an uncommon
intelligence and sensibility in her eyes: She appeared to have been
handsome when she was young, but at this time little more than memorials
of her beauty were left.

As soon as her quality was known, an offer was made to conduct her to
the ship. Of this she readily accepted, and came on board with two men
and several women, who seemed to be all of her family: I received her
with such marks of distinction as I thought would gratify her most, and
was not sparing of my presents, among which this august personage seemed
particularly delighted with a child's doll. After some time spent on
board, I attended her back to the shore; and as soon as we landed, she
presented me with a hog, and several bunches of plantains, which she
caused to be carried from her canoes up to the fort in a kind of
procession, of which she and myself brought up the rear. In our way to
the fort we met Tootahah, who, though not king, appeared to be at this
time invested with the sovereign authority; he seemed not to be well
pleased with the distinction that was shewed to the lady, and became so
jealous when she produced her doll, that to propitiate him it was
thought proper to compliment him with another. At this time he thought
fit to prefer a doll to a hatchet; but this preference arose only from a
childish jealousy, which could not be soothed but by a gift of exactly
the same kind with that which had been presented to Oberea; for dolls in
a very short time were universally considered as trifles of no value.

The men who had visited us from time to time had, without scruple, eaten
of our provisions; but the women had never yet been prevailed upon to
taste a morsel. To-day, however, though they refused the most pressing
solicitations to dine with the gentlemen, they afterwards retired to the
servants' apartment, and eat of plantains very heartily; a mystery of
female oeconomy here, which none of us could explain.

On the 29th, not very early in the forenoon, Mr Banks went to pay his
court to Oberea, and was told that she was still asleep under the awning
of her canoe: Thither therefore he went, intending to call her up, a
liberty which he thought he might take, without any danger of giving
offence: But, upon looking into her chamber, to his great astonishment,
he found her in bed with a handsome young fellow about five-and-twenty,
whose name was OBADEE: He retreated with some haste and confusion, but
was soon made to understand, that such amours gave no occasion to
scandal, and that Obadee was universally known to have been selected by
her as the object of her private favours. The lady being too polite to
suffer Mr Banks to wait long in her anti-chamber, dressed herself with
more than usual expedition, and, as a token of special grace, clothed
him in a suit of fine cloth and proceeded with him to the tents. In the
evening Mr Banks paid a visit to Tubourai Tamaide, as he had often done
before, by candle light, and was equally grieved and surprised to find
him and his family in a melancholy mood, and most of them in tears: He
endeavoured in vain to discover the cause, and therefore his stay among
them was but short. When he reported this circumstance to the officers
at the fort, they recollected that Owhaw had foretold, that in four days
we should fire our great guns; and as this was the eve of the third day,
the situation in which Tubourai Tamaide and his family had been found,
alarmed them. The centries therefore were doubled at the fort, and the
gentlemen slept under arms; at two in the morning, Mr Banks himself went
round the point, but found every thing so quiet, that he gave up all
suspicions of mischief intended by the natives as groundless. We had,
however, another source of security; our little fortification was now
complete. The north and south sides consisted of a bank of earth four
feet and a half high on the inside, and a ditch without ten feet broad
and six deep; on the west side, facing the bay, there was a bank of
earth four feet high, and pallisadoes upon that, but no ditch, the works
here being at high-water mark; on the east side, upon the bank of the
river, was placed a double row of water casks, filled with water; and
as this was the weakest side, the two four-pounders were planted there,
and six swivel guns were mounted so as to command the only two avenues
from the woods. Our garrison consisted of about five-and-forty men with
small arms, including the officers, and the gentlemen who resided on
shore; and our centries were as well relieved as on the best regulated
frontier in Europe.

We continued our vigilance the next day, though we had no particular
reason to think it necessary; but about ten o'clock in the morning,
Tomio came running to the tents, with a mixture of grief and fear in her
countenance, and taking Mr Banks, to whom they applied in every
emergency and distress, by the arm, intimated that Tubourai Tamaide was
dying, in consequence of something which our people had given him to
eat, and that he must instantly go with her to his house. Mr Banks set
out without delay, and found his Indian friend leaning his head against
a post, in an attitude of the utmost languor and despondency; the people
about him intimated that he had been vomitting, and brought out a leaf
folded up with great care, which they said contained some of the poison,
by the deleterious effects of which he was now dying. Mr Banks hastily
opened the leaf, and upon examining its contents found them to be no
other than a chew of tobacco, which the chief had begged of some of our
people, and which they had indiscreetly given him: He had observed that
they kept it long in the mouth, and being desirous of doing the same, he
had chewed it to powder, and swallowed the spittle. During the
examination of the leaf and its contents, he looked up at Mr Banks with
the most piteous aspect, and intimated that he had but a very short time
to live. Mr Banks, however, being now master of his disease, directed
him to drink plentifully of cocoa-nut milk, which in a short time put an
end to his sickness and apprehensions, and he spent the day at the fort
with that uncommon flow of cheerfulness and good-humour, which is always
produced by a sudden and unexpected relief from pain either of body or
mind.

Captain Wallis having brought home one of the adzes, which these people,
having no metal of any kind, make of stone, Mr Stevens, the secretary to
the Admiralty, procured one to be made of iron in imitation of it, which
I brought out with me, to shew how much we excelled in making tools
after their own fashion: This I had not yet produced, as it never
happened to come into my mind. But on the 1st of May, Tootahah coming on
board about ten o'clock in the forenoon, expressed a great curiosity to
see the contents of every chest and drawer that was in my cabin; as I
always made a point of gratifying him, I opened them immediately, and
having taken a fancy to many things that he saw, and collected them
together, he at last happened to cast his eye upon this adze; he
instantly snatched it up with the greatest eagerness, and putting away
every thing which he had before selected, he asked me whether I would
let him have that: I readily consented; and, as if he was afraid I
should repent, he carried it off immediately in a transport of joy,
without making any other request, which, whatever had been our
liberality, was seldom the case.

About noon, a chief, who had dined with me a few days before,
accompanied by some of his women, came on board alone: I had observed
that he was fed by his women, but I made no doubt, that upon occasion he
would condescend to feed himself: In this, however, I found myself
mistaken. When my noble guest was seated, and the dinner upon the table,
I helped him to some victuals: As I observed that he did not immediately
begin his meal, I pressed him to eat: But he still continued to sit
motionless like a statue, without attempting to put a single morsel into
his month, and would certainly have gone without his dinner, if one of
the servants had not fed him.[90]

[Footnote 90: The great people of Otaheite, whether men or women, seem
to think that the labour of eating is sufficient employment, without the
additional task of feeding, which in all probability they find can be
done more expeditiously by proxy. Nor is such a consideration entirely
unworthy of nobility, where the power of consuming food is so exorbitant
as among those islanders it might be convenient, one should think, for
any man of rank who was capable of swallowing enormous quantities of
food every hour or two, to have an attendant properly instructed in the
art of stowing the belly-timber, as honest Sancho, of eating notoriety,
calls it. "Tinah," says Captain Bligh, in the account of his voyage to
this island, &c. "was fed by one of his attendants, who sat by him for
that purpose, this being a particular custom among some of the superior
chiefs; and I must do him the justice to say, he kept his attendant
constantly employed: There was indeed little reason to complain of want
of appetite in any of my guests. As the women are not allowed to eat in
presence of the men, Iddeah dined with some of her companions about an
hour afterwards, in private, except her husband, Tinah, favoured them
with his company, and seemed to have entirely forgotten that he had
dined already." The capabilities of Tinah's stomach, it seems, were of
very common acquirement at Otaheite. "They have not always regular
meals," says the account of the Mis. Voy., "but usually eat as soon as
they rise at day-break. Some are very voracious, especially the chiefs.
Pomarae hath eaten a couple of fowls and two pounds at least of pork,
besides other things, at a meal with us on board." Some persons may
imagine this impossible; but the fact is, the stomach, like every other
member, acquires strength by exercise, and can, by due care, if there be
no disease, be made to digest quantities of food as great as its
distended limits are capable of receiving. There cannot be a more
erroneous, or a more pernicious opinion, than what is commonly
entertained, that the keenness of the appetite, and the energy of the
digestion, are never above what the necessities of the system require.
They are often enormously greater, and sometimes actually constitute
most troublesome and highly formidable symptoms in certain
diseases.--E.]

SECTION XI.

_The Observatory set up; the Quadrant stolen, and Consequences of the
Theft: A visit to Tootohah: Description of a Wrestling-match: European
Seeds sown: Names given to our People by the Indians_.

In the afternoon of Monday the 1st of May, we set up the observatory,
and took the astronomical quadrant, with some other instruments, on
shore, for the first time.

The next morning, about nine o'clock, I went on shore with Mr Green to
fix the quadrant in a situation for use, when, to our inexpressible
surprise and concern, it was not to be found. It had been deposited in
the tent which was reserved for my use, where, as I passed the night on
board, nobody slept: It had never been taken out of the packing-case;
which was eighteen inches square, and the whole was of considerable
weight; a centinel had been posted the whole night within five yards of
the tent door, and none of the other instruments were missing. We at
first suspected that it might have been stolen by some of our own
people, who seeing a deal box, and not knowing the contents, might think
it contained nails, or some other subjects of traffic with the natives.
A large reward was therefore offered to any one who could find it, as,
without this, we could not perform the service for which our voyage was
principally undertaken. Our search in the mean time was not confined to
the fort and places adjacent, but as the case might possibly have been
carried back to the ship, if any of our own people had been the thieves,
the most diligent search was made for it on board: All the parties
however returned without any news of the quadrant. Mr Banks, therefore,
who upon such occasions declined neither labour nor risk, and who had
more influence over the Indians than any of us, determined to go in
search of it into the woods; he hoped, that if it had been stolen by the
natives, he should find it whereever they had opened the box, as they
would immediately discover that to them it would be wholly useless; or,
if in this expectation he should be disappointed, that he might recover
it by the ascendancy he had acquired over the chiefs. He set out,
accompanied by a midshipman and Mr Green, and as he was crossing the
river he was met by Tubourai Tamaide, who immediately made the figure of
a triangle with three bits of straw upon his hand. By this Mr Banks knew
that the Indians were the thieves; and that, although they had opened
the case, they were not disposed to part with the contents. No time was
therefore to be lost, and Mr Banks made Tubourai Tamaide understand,
that he must instantly go with him to the place whither the quadrant had
been carried; he consented, and they set out together to the eastward,
the chief enquiring at every house which they passed after the thief by
name: The people readily told him which way he was gone, and how long it
was since he had been there: The hope which this gave them that they
should overtake him, supported them under their fatigue, and they
pressed forward, sometimes walking, sometimes running, though the
weather was intolerably hot; when they had climbed a hill at the
distance of about four miles, their conductor shewed them a point full
three miles farther, and gave them to understand that they were not to
expect the instrument till they had got thither. Here they paused; they
had no arms, except a pair of pistols, which Mr Banks always carried in
his pocket; they were going to a place that was at least seven miles
distant from the fort, where the Indians might be less submissive than
at home, and to take from them what they had ventured their lives to
get; and what, notwithstanding our conjectures, they appeared desirous
to keep: These were discouraging circumstances, and their situation
would become more critical at every step. They determined, however, not
to relinquish their enterprise, nor to pursue it without taking the best
measures for their security that were in their power. It was therefore
determined, that Mr Banks and Mr Green should go on, and that the
midshipman should return to me, and desire that I would send a party of
men after them, acquainting me at the same time, that it was impossible
they should return till it was dark. Upon receiving this message I set
out, with such a party as I thought sufficient for the occasion; leaving
orders, both at the ship and at the fort, that no canoe should be
suffered to go out of the bay, but that none of the natives should be
seized or detained.