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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The latitude of the observatory was found to be 17 deg. 29' 15"; and the
longitude 149 deg. 32' 30" W. of Greenwich. A more particular account will
appear by the tables, for which the reader is referred to the
Transactions of the Royal Society; vol. lxi. part 2. p. 397 et seq.
where they are illustrated by a cut.

But if we had reason to congratulate ourselves upon the success of our
observation; we had scarce less cause to regret the diligence with which
that time had been improved by some of our people to another purpose.
While the attention of the officers was engrossed by the transit of
Venus, some of the ship's company broke into one of the store-rooms, and
stole a quantity of spike-nails, amounting to no less than one hundred
weight: This was a matter of public and serious concern; for these
nails, if circulated by the people among the Indians, would do us
irreparable injury, by reducing the value of iron, our staple commodity.
One of the thieves was detected, but only seven nails were found in his
custody. He was punished with two dozen lashes, but would impeach none
of his accomplices.

SECTION XIII.

_The Ceremonies of an Indian Funeral particularly described: General
Observations on the Subject: A Character found among the Indians to
which the Ancients paid great veneration: A Robbery at the Fort, and its
Consequences; with a Specimen of Indian Cookery, and various Incidents._

On the 5th, we kept his majesty's birth-day; for though it is the 4th,
we were unwilling to celebrate it during the absence of the two parties
who had been sent out to observe the transit. We had several of the
Indian chiefs at our entertainment, who drank his majesty's health by
the name of Kihiargo, which was the nearest imitation they could produce
of King George.

About this time died an old woman of some rank, who was related to
Tomio, which gave us an opportunity to see how they disposed of the
body, and confirmed us in our opinion that these people, contrary to the
present custom of all other nations now known, never bury their dead. In
the middle of a small square, neatly railed in with bamboo, the awning
of a canoe was raised upon two posts, and under this the body was
deposited upon such a frame as has before been described: It was covered
with fine cloth, and near it was placed bread-fruit, fish, and other
provisions: We supposed that the food was placed there for the spirit of
the deceased, and consequently, that these Indians had some confused
notion of a separate state; but upon our applying for further
information to Tubourai Tamaide, he told us, that the food was placed
there as an offering to their gods. They do not, however, suppose, that
the gods eat, any more than the Jews supposed that Jehovah could dwell
in a house: The offering is made here upon the same principle as the
temple was built at Jerusalem, as an expression of reverence and
gratitude, and a solicitation of the more immediate presence of the
Deity. In the front of the area was a kind of stile, where the relations
of the deceased stood to pay the tribute of their sorrow; and under the
awning were innumerable small pieces of cloth, on which the tears and
blood of the mourners had been shed; for in their paroxysms of grief it
is a universal custom to wound themselves with the shark's tooth.
Within a few yards two occasional houses were set up, in one of which
some relations of the deceased constantly resided, and in the other the
chief mourner, who is always a man, and who keeps there a very singular
dress in which a ceremony is performed that will be described in its
turn. Near the place where the dead are thus set up to rot, the bones
are afterwards buried.

What can have introduced among these people the custom of exposing their
dead above ground, till the flesh is consumed by putrefaction, and then
burying the bones, it is perhaps impossible to guess; but it is
remarkable that AElian and Apollonius Rhodius impute a similar practice
to the ancient inhabitants of Colchis, a country near Pontus in Asia,
now called Mingrelia; except that among them this manner of disposing of
the dead did not extend to both sexes: The women they buried; but the
men they wrapped in a hide; and hung up in the air by a chain. This
practice among the Colchians is referred to a religious cause. The
principal objects of their worship were the Earth and the Air; and it is
supposed that, in consequence of some superstitious notion, they devoted
their dead to both.[92] Whether the natives of Otaheite had any notion
of the same kind, we were never able certainly to determine; but we soon
discovered, that the repositories of their dead were also places of
worship. Upon this occasion it may be observed, that nothing can be more
absurd than the notion that the happiness or misery of a future life
depends, in any degree, upon the disposition of the body when the state
of probation is past; yet that nothing is more general than a solicitude
about it. However cheap we may hold any funeral rites which custom has
not familiarized, or superstition rendered sacred, most men gravely
deliberate how to prevent their body from being broken by the mattock
and devoured by the worm, when it is no longer capable of sensation; and
purchase a place for it in holy ground, when they believe the lot of its
future existence to be irrevocably determined. So strong is the
association of pleasing or painful ideas with certain opinions and
actions which affect us while we live, that we involuntarily act as if
it was equally certain that they would affect us in the same manner when
we are dead, though this is an opinion that nobody will maintain. Thus
it happens, that the desire of preserving from reproach even the name
that we leave behind us, or of procuring it honour, is one of the most
powerful principles of action, among the inhabitants of the most
speculative and enlightened nations. Posthumous reputation, upon every
principle, must be acknowledged to have no influence upon the dead; yet
the desire or obtaining and securing it, no force of reason, no habits
of thinking can subdue, except in those whom habitual baseness and guilt
have rendered indifferent to honour and shame while they lived. This
indeed seems to be among the happy imperfections of our nature, upon
which the general good of society in a certain measure depends; for as
some crimes are supposed to be prevented by hanging the body of the
criminal in chains after he is dead, so, in consequence of the same
association of ideas, much good is procured to society, and much evil
prevented, by a desire of preventing disgrace or procuring honour to a
name, when nothing but a name remains.

[Footnote 92: If the Colchians, according to the assertion of Herodotus,
Euter. 104, are to be considered as derived from the Egyptians, which
some circumstances of resemblance render probable, it seems not
irrational to imagine, that they had acquired from that people an
abhorrence to the thought of becoming food for worms. This, Herodotus
says, in Thal. 16. was the reason why they (the Egyptians) embalmed the
bodies of the dead; for which the practice adopted by the Colchians, of
wrapping them in hides of oxen for the purpose of preservation, was
judged an adequate substitute. But though this be admitted as
satisfactory with respect to the origin of the usage, it affords no
explanation as to the difference observable in the treatment of the
sexes after death, which must be looked for in some other circumstance,
common to these two people, or peculiar to one, of them. It can scarcely
be imputed to the different estimation in which the sexes were held
whilst living; for if any thing, at least in the opinion of Diodorus
Siculus, the women were in higher authority in Egypt than the men, in so
far as civil and political rights were concerned. On the other hand, it
is certain from Herodotus, that men alone could officiate in the service
of their gods, whether male or female, and that there were no
priestesses in Egypt. No reason can be discovered for this exclusion. It
is merely credible, that the Egyptians, though ascribing great
excellence to the female sex in various particulars, nevertheless judged
them to be destitute of that principle which constituted the essence of
the gods; and therefore unfit for their society. Possibly they might in
consequence imagine them to be incapable of immortality and
transmigration, a belief which they so firmly maintained, as to be led
to specify the various changes which the soul underwent for the space of
three thousand years, when it re-assumed the human body. Now, if the
Colchians credited this doctrine of the immortality and transmigration
of the soul, and at the same time depreciated for any reasons whatever
the dignity of women, one may easily conceive why they should think of
a difference in the mode of disposing of male and female corpses. After
all, however, such reasoning as this is very far from satisfactory;
nevertheless, in the mind of the judicious reader, accustomed to
contemplate the minute circumstances, which, though much modified, prove
a connection betwixt different people, it cannot but have some
weight,--E.]

Perhaps no better use can be made of reading an account of manners
altogether new, by which the follies and absurdities of mankind are
taken out of that particular connection in which habit has reconciled
them to us, than to consider in how many instances they are essentially
the same. When an honest devotee of the church of Rome reads, that there
are Indians on the banks of the Ganges who believe that they shall
secure the happiness of a future state by dying with a cow's tail in
their hands, he laughs at their folly and superstition; and if these
Indians were to be told, that there are people upon the continent of
Europe, who imagine that they shall derive the same advantage from dying
with the slipper of St Francis upon their foot, they would laugh in
their turn. But if, when the Indian heard the account of the catholic,
and the catholic that of the Indian, each was to reflect, that there was
no difference between the absurdity of the slipper and of the tail, but
that the veil of prejudice and custom, which covered it in their own
case, was withdrawn in the other, they would turn their knowledge to a
profitable purpose.

Having observed that bread-fruit had for some days been brought in less
quantities than usual, we enquired the reason, and were told, that there
being a great shew of fruit upon the trees, they had been thinned all at
once, in order to make a kind of sour paste, which the natives call
_Mahie_, and which, in consequence of having undergone a fermentation,
will keep a considerable time, and supply them with food when no ripe
fruit is to be had.

On the 10th, the ceremony was to be performed, in honour of the old
woman whose sepulchral tabernacle has just been described, by the chief
mourner; and Mr Banks had so great a curiosity to see all the mysteries
of the solemnity, that he determined to take a part in it, being told,
that he could be present upon no other condition. In the evening,
therefore, he repaired to the place where the body lay, and was received
by the daughter of the deceased, and several other persons, among whom
was a boy about fourteen years old, who were to assist in the ceremony.
Tubourai Tamaide was to be the principal mourner; and his dress was
extremely fantastical, though not unbecoming. Mr Banks was stripped of
his European clothes, and a small piece of cloth being tied round his
middle, his body was smeared with charcoal and water, as low as the
shoulders, till it was as black as that of a negro: The same operation
was performed upon several others, among whom were some women, who were
reduced to a state as near to nakedness as himself; the boy was blacked
all over, and then the procession set forward. Tubourai Tamaide uttered
something, which was supposed to be a prayer, near the body; and did the
same when he came up to his own house: When this was done, the
procession was continued towards the fort, permission having been
obtained to approach it upon this occasion. It is the custom of the
Indians to fly from these processions with the utmost precipitation, so
that as soon as those who were about the fort, saw it at a distance,
they hid themselves in the woods. It proceeded from the fort along the
shore, and put to flight another body of Indians, consisting of more
than an hundred, every one hiding himself under the first shelter that
he could find: It then crossed the river, and entered the woods, passing
several houses, all which were deserted, and not a single Indian could
be seen during the rest of the procession, which continued more than
half an hour. The office that Mr Banks performed was called that of the
_Nineveh_, of which there were two besides himself; and the natives
having all disappeared, they came to the chief mourner, and said
_imitata_, there are no people, after which the company was dismissed to
wash themselves in the river, and put on their customary apparel.

On the 12th, complaint being made to me, by some of the natives, that
two of the seamen had taken from them several bows and arrows, and some
strings of plaited hair, I examined the matter, and finding the charge
well supported, I punished each of the criminals with two dozen lashes.

Their bows and arrows have not been mentioned before, nor were they
often brought down to the fort: This day, however, Tubourai Tamaide
brought down his, in consequence of a challenge which he had received
from Mr Gore. The chief supposed it was to try who could send the arrow
farthest; Mr Gore, who best could hit a mark; and as Mr Gore did not
value himself upon shooting to a great distance, nor the chief upon
hitting a mark, there was no trial of skill between them. Tubourai
Tamaide, however, to shew us what he could do, drew his bow, and sent an
arrow, none of which are feathered, two hundred and seventy-four yards,
which is something more than a seventh, and something less than a sixth
part of a mile. Their manner of shooting is somewhat singular; they
kneel down, and the moment the arrow is discharged, drop the bow.

Mr Banks, in his morning walk this day, met a number of the natives,
whom, upon enquiry, he found to be travelling musicians; and having
learnt where they were to be at night, we all repaired to the place. The
band consisted of two flutes and three drums, and we found a great
number of people assembled upon the occasion; The drummers accompanied
the music with their voices, and, to our great surprise, we discovered
that we were generally the subject of the song. We did not expect to
have found among the uncivilized inhabitants of this sequestered spot, a
character, which has been the subject of such praise and veneration
where genius and knowledge have been most conspicuous; yet these were
the bards or minstrels of Otaheite. Their song was unpremeditated, and
accompanied with music; they were continually going about from place to
place, and they were rewarded by the master of the house, and the
audience, with such things as one wanted and the other could spare.

On the 14th, we were brought into new difficulties and inconvenience by
another robbery at the fort. In the middle of the night, one of the
natives contrived to steal an iron coal-rake, that was made use of for
the oven. It happened to be set up against the inside of the wall, so
that the top of the handle was visible from without; and we were
informed that the thief, who had been seen lurking there in the evening,
came secretly about three o'clock in the morning, and, watching his
opportunity when the centinel's back was turned, very dexterously laid
hold of it with a long crooked stick, and drew it over the wall. I
thought it of some consequence, if possible, to put an end to these
practices at once, by doing something that should make it the common
interest of the natives themselves to prevent them. I had given strict
orders that they should not be fired upon, even when detected in these
attempts, for which, I had many reasons: The common centinels were by no
means fit to be entrusted with a power of life and death, to be exerted
whenever they should think fit, and I had already experienced that they
were ready to take away the lives that were in their power, upon the
slightest occasion; neither indeed did I think that the thefts which
these people committed against us, were, in them, crimes worthy of
death: That thieves are hanged in England, I thought no reason why they
should be shot in Otaheite; because with respect to the natives, it
would have been an execution by a law _ex post facto_: They had no such
law among themselves, and it did not appear to me that we had any right
to make such a law for them. That they should abstain from theft, or be
punished with death, was not one of the conditions under which they
claimed the advantages of civil society, as it is among us; and I was
not willing to expose them to fire-arms, loaded with shot, neither could
I perfectly approve of firing only with powder: At first, indeed, the
noise and the smoke would alarm them, but when they found that no
mischief followed, they would be led to despise the weapons themselves,
and proceed to insults, which would make it necessary to put them to the
test, and from which they would be deterred by the very sight of a gun
if it was never used but with effect. At this time, an accident
furnished me with what I thought a happy expedient. It happened that
above twenty of their sailing canoes were just come in with a supply of
fish: Upon these I immediately seized, and bringing them into the river
behind the fort, gave public notice, that except the rake, and all the
rest of the things which from time to time had been stolen, were
returned, the canoes should be burnt. This menace I ventured to publish,
though I had no design to put it into execution, making no doubt but
that it was well known in whose possession the stolen goods were, and
that as restitution was thus made a common cause, they would all of them
in a short time be brought back. A list of the things was made out,
consisting principally of the rake, the musket which had been taken from
the marine when the Indian was shot; the pistols which Mr Banks lost
with his clothes at Atahourou; a sword belonging to one of the petty
officers, and the water cask. About noon, the rake was restored, and
great solicitation was made for the release of the canoes; but I still
insisted upon my original, condition. The next day came, and nothing
farther was restored, at which I was much surprised, for the people were
in the utmost distress for the fish, which in a short time would be
spoilt; I was, therefore, reduced to a disagreeable situation, either of
releasing the canoes, contrary to what I had solemnly and publicly
declared, or to detain them, to the great injury of those who were
innocent, without answering any good purpose to ourselves: As a
temporary expedient, I permitted them to take the fish; but still
detained the canoes. This very licence, however, was productive of new
confusion and injury; for, it not being easy at once to distinguish to
what particular persons the several lots of fish belonged, the canoes
were plundered, under favour of this circumstance, by those who had no
right to any part of their cargo. Most pressing instances were still
made that the canoes might be restored, and I having now the greatest
reason to believe, either that the things for which I detained them were
not in the island, or that those who suffered by their detention had not
sufficient influence over the thieves to prevail upon them to
relinquish, their booty, determined at length to give them up, not a
little mortified at the bad success of my project.

Another accident also about this time was, notwithstanding all our
caution, very near embroiling us with the Indians. I sent the boat on
shore with an officer to get ballast for the ship, and not immediately
finding stones convenient for the purpose, he began to pull down some
part of an enclosure where they deposited the bones of their dead: This
the Indians violently opposed, and a messenger came down to the tents to
acquaint the officers that they would not suffer it. Mr Banks
immediately repaired to the place, and an amicable end was soon put to
the dispute, by sending the boat's crew to the river, where stones
enough were to be gathered without a possibility of giving offence. It
is very remarkable, that these Indians appeared to be much more jealous
of what was done to the dead than the living. This was the only measure
in which they ventured to oppose us, and the only insult that was
offered to any individual among us was upon a similar occasion. Mr
Monkhouse happening one day to pull a flower from a tree which grew in
one of their sepulchral enclosures, an Indian, whose jealousy had
probably been upon the watch, came suddenly behind him, and struck him:
Mr Monkhouse laid hold of him, but he was instantly rescued by two more,
who took hold of Mr Monkhouse's hair, and forced him to quit his hold of
their companion, and then ran away without offering him any farther
violence.

In the evening of the 19th, while the canoes were still detained, we
received a visit from Oberea, which surprised us not a little, as she
brought with her none of the things that had been stolen, and knew that
she was suspected of having some of them in her custody. She said
indeed, that her favourite Obadee, whom she had beaten and dismissed,
had taken them away; but she seemed conscious, that she had no right to
be believed: She discovered the strongest signs of fear, yet she
surmounted it with astonishing resolution; and was very pressing to
sleep with her attendants in Mr Banks's tent. In this, however, she was
not gratified; the affair of the jacket was too recent, and the tent was
besides filled with other people. Nobody else seemed willing to
entertain her, and she therefore, with great appearance of mortification
and disappointment, spent the night in her canoe.

The next morning early, she returned to the fort, with her canoe and
every thing that it contained, putting herself wholly into our power,
with something like greatness of mind, which excited our wonder and
admiration. As the most effectual means to bring about a reconciliation,
she presented us with a hog, and several other things, among which was a
dog. We had lately learnt, that these animals were esteemed by the
Indians as more delicate food than their pork; and upon this occasion we
determined to try the experiment: The dog, which was very fat, we
consigned over to Tupia, who undertook to perform the double office of
butcher and cook. He killed him by holding his hands close over his
mouth and nose, an operation which continued above a quarter of an hour.
While this was doing, a hole was made in the ground about a foot deep,
in which a fire was kindled, and some small stones placed in layers
alternately with the wood to heat; the dog was then singed, by holding
him over the tire, and, by scraping him with a shell, the hair taken off
as clean as if he had been scalded in hot water: He was then cut up with
the same instrument, and his entrails being taken out, were sent to the
sea, where being carefully washed, they were put into cocoa-nut shells,
with what blood had come from the body: When the hole was sufficiently
heated, the fire was taken out, and some of the stones, which were not
so hot as to discolour any thing that they touched, being placed at the
bottom, were covered with green leaves: The dog, with the entrails, was
then placed upon the leaves, and other leaves being laid upon them, the
whole was covered with the rest of the hot stones, and the mouth of the
hole close stopped with mould: In somewhat less than four hours it was
again opened, and the dog taken out excellently baked, and we all agreed
that he made a very good dish. The dogs which are here bred to be eaten,
taste no animal food, but are kept wholly upon bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts,
yams, and other vegetables of the like kind: All the flesh and fish
eaten by the inhabitants is dressed in the same way.

On the 21st, we were visited at the fort by a chief, called _Oamo_,
whom we had never seen before, and who was treated by the natives with
uncommon respect; he brought with him a boy about seven years old, and a
young woman about sixteen: The boy was carried upon a man's back, which
we considered as a piece of state, for he was as well able to walk as
any present. As soon as they were in sight, Oberea, and several other
natives who were in the fort, went out to meet them, having first
uncovered their heads and bodies as low as the waist: As they came on,
the same ceremony was performed by all the natives who were without the
fort. Uncovering the body, therefore, is in this country probably a mark
of respect; and as all parts are here exposed with equal indifference,
the ceremony of uncovering it from the waist downwards, which was
performed by Oorattooa, might be nothing more than a different mode of
compliment, adapted to persons of a different rank. The chief came into
the tent, but no entreaty could prevail upon the young woman to follow
him, though she seemed to refuse contrary to her inclination: The
natives without were indeed all very solicitous to prevent her;
sometimes, when her resolution seemed to fail, almost using force: The
boy also they restrained in the same manner; but Dr Solander happening
to meet him at the gate, took him by the hand, and led him in before the
people were aware of it: As soon, however, as those that were within saw
him, they took care to have him sent out.