A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 by Robert Kerr

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It is not fit that a practice so horrid and so strange should be
imputed to human beings upon slight evidence, but I have such as
abundantly justifies me in the account I have given. The people
themselves are so far from concealing their connection with such a
society as a disgrace, that they boast of it as a privilege; and both
myself and Mr Banks, when particular persons have been pointed out to us
as members of the Arreoy, have questioned them about it, and received
the account that has been here given from their own lips. They have
acknowledged, that they had long been of this accursed society, that
they belonged to it at that time, and that several of their children had
been put to death.[15]

[Footnote 15: It seems, from Mr Turnbull's account, that these accursed
arreoys were rather on the increase,--a circumstance, which, considering
that infanticide formed a part, an essential part indeed, of their
policy, may well explain the rapidity in the diminution of the people
before noticed.--E.]

But I must not conclude my account of the domestic life of these people
without mentioning their personal cleanliness. If that which lessens the
good of life and increases the evil is vice, surely cleanliness is a
virtue: The want of it tends to destroy both beauty and health, and
mingles disgust, with our best pleasures. The natives of Otaheite, both
men and women, constantly wash their whole bodies in running water three
times every day; once as soon as they rise in the morning, once at noon,
and again before they sleep at night, whether the sea or river is near
them or at a distance. I have already observed, that they wash not only
the mouth, but the hands at their meals, almost between every morsel;
and their clothes, as well as their persons, are kept without spot or
stain; so that in a large company of these people, nothing is suffered
but heat, which, perhaps, is more than can be said of the politest
assembly in Europe.[16]

[Footnote 16: Here Dr H. seems to have forgotten altogether the
substitutes which modern Europeans employ for cleanliness, to render
polite assemblies tolerable--musk, bergamot, lavender, &c. &c. articles,
which, besides their value in saving the precious time of our fine
ladies, who could not easily spare a quarter of an hour a day from their
important occupations, for the Otaheitan practice of bathing, are of
vast utility to the state, by affording suitable exercise to the talents
of the vast tribe of perfumers and beautifiers of every description,
who, it is probable, would otherwise become mere drones in the
community. But what would these Otaheitans conceive of the health and
comfort and appearance and odour of the great mass of British ladies,
who, unless banished to a watering place, no more think of being
_generally_ washed, than of being curried with a currying-comb, or
undergoing the operation of tattowing? The powers of nature are
marvellous indeed, which can support their lives for years, under all
the fifth and exuviae, accumulated with such idolatrous fondness.--E.]

SECTION XVIII.

_Of the Manufactures, Boats, and Navigations of Otaheite._

If necessity is the mother of invention, it cannot be supposed to have
been much exerted where the liberality of Nature has rendered the
diligence of Art almost superfluous; yet there are many instances both
of ingenuity and labour among these people, which, considering the want
of metal for tools, do honour to both.

Their principal manufacture is their cloth, in the making and dyeing of
which I think there are some particulars which may instruct even the
artificers of Great Britain, and for that reason my description will be
more minute.

Their cloth is of three kinds; and it is made of the bark of three
different trees, the Chinese paper mulberry, the bread-fruit tree, and
the tree which resembles the wild fig-tree of the West Indies.

The finest and whitest is made of the paper mulberry, _Aouta_; this is
worn chiefly by the principal people, and when it is dyed red takes a
better colour. A second sort, inferior in whiteness and softness, is
made of the bread-fruit tree, _Ooroo_, and worn chiefly by the interior
people; and a third of the tree that resembles the fig, which is coarse
and harsh, and of the colour of the darkest brown paper: This, though it
is less pleasing both to the eye and to the touch, is the most valuable,
because it resists water, which the other two sorts will not. Of this,
which is the most rare as well as the most useful, the greater part is
perfumed, and worn by the chiefs as a morning dress.

All these trees are propagated with great care, particularly the
mulberry, which covers the largest part of the cultivated land, and is
not fit for use after two or three years growth, when it is about six or
eight feet high, and somewhat thicker than a man's thumb; its excellence
is to be thin, straight, tall, and without branches: The lower leaves,
therefore, are carefully plucked off, with their germs, as often as
there is any appearance of their producing a branch.

But though the cloth made of these three trees is different, it is all
manufactured in the same manner; I shall, therefore, describe the
process only in the fine sort, that is made of the mulberry.[17] When
the trees are of a proper size, they are drawn up, and stripped of their
branches, after which the roots and tops are cut off; the bark of these
rods being then slit up longitudinally is easily drawn off, and, when a
proper quantity has been procured, it is carried down to some running
water, in which it is deposited to soak, and secured from floating away
by heavy stones: When it is supposed to be sufficiently softened, the
women servants go down to the brook, and stripping themselves, sit down
in the water, to separate the inner bark from the green bark on the
outside; to do this they place the under side upon a flat smooth board,
and with the shell which our dealers call Tyger's tongue, _Tellina
gargadia_, scrape it very carefully, dipping it continually in the water
till nothing remains but the fine fibres of the inner coat. Being thus
prepared in the afternoon, they are spread out upon plantain leaves in
the evening; and in this part of the work there appears to be some
difficulty, as the mistress of the family always superintends the doing
of it: They are placed in lengths of about eleven or twelve yards, one
by the side of another, till they are about a foot broad, and two or
three layers are also laid one upon the other: Care is taken that the
cloth shall be in all parts of an equal thickness, so that if the bark
happens to be thinner in any particular part of one layer than the rest,
a piece that is somewhat thicker is picked out to be laid over it in the
next. In this state it remains till the morning, when great part of the
water which it contained when it was laid out, is either drained off or
evaporated, and the several fibres adhere together, so as that the whole
may be raised from the ground in one piece.

[Footnote 17: The reader will find additional information on this
subject, and on several others here treated, in some of the subsequent
accounts; from which, however, it seemed unadvisable to make quotations
at present. It is scarcely necessary to add, that the curious art of
dyeing, which the Otaheitans seem to practise with no small ingenuity,
has been much vestigated on philosophical principles since the date of
this publication. Modern chemistry has a right to boast of her
acquisitions in so very important a point of domestic science; but it
would be invidious and improper to specify them in this place.--E.]

It is then taken away, and laid upon the smooth side of a long piece of
wood, prepared for the purpose, and beaten, by the women servants, with
instruments about a foot long and three inches thick, made of a hard
wood which they call _Etoa_. The shape of this instrument is not unlike
a square razor strop, only that the handle is longer, and each of its
four sides or faces is marked, lengthways, with small grooves, or
furrows, of different degrees of fineness; those on one side being of a
width and depth sufficient to receive a small packthread, and the others
finer in a regular gradation, so that the last are not more than equal
to sewing silk.

They beat it first with the coarsest side of this mallet, keeping time
like our smiths; it spreads very fast under the strokes, chiefly however
in the breadth, and the grooves in the mallet mark it with the
appearance of threads; it is successively beaten with the other sides,
last with the finest, and is then fit for use. Sometimes, however, it is
made still thinner, by beating it with the finest side of the mallet,
after it has been several times doubled: It is then called _Hoboo_, and
is almost as thin as a muslin; It becomes very white by being bleached
in the air, but is made still whiter and softer by being washed and
beaten again after it has been worn.

Of this cloth there are several sorts, of different degrees of fineness,
in proportion as it is more or less beaten without being doubled: The
other cloth also differs in proportion as it is beaten; but they differ
from each other in consequence of the different materials of which they
are made. The bark of the bread-fruit is not taken till the trees are
considerably longer and thicker than those of the fig; the process
afterwards is the same.

When cloth is to be washed after it has been worn, it is taken down to
the brook, and left to soak, being kept fast to the bottom, as at first,
by a stone; it is then gently wrung or squeezed; and sometimes several
pieces of it are laid one upon another, and beaten together with the
coarsest side of the mallet, and they are then equal in thickness to
broad-cloth, and much more soft and agreeable to the touch, after they
have been a little while in use, though when they come immediately from
the mallet, they feel as if they had been starched. This cloth sometimes
breaks in the beating, but is easily repaired by pasting on a patch with
a gluten that is prepared from the root of the _Pea_, which is done so
nicely that it cannot be discovered. The women also employ themselves in
removing blemishes of every kind, as our ladies do in needle-work or
knotting; sometimes when their work is intended to be very fine, they
will paste an entire covering of hoboo over the whole. The principal
excellencies of this cloth are its coolness and softness; and its
imperfections, its being pervious to water like paper, and almost as
easily torn.[18]

[Footnote 18: The missionary account tells us, that the noble Women are
the principal cloth-makers. Among these people, it seems, that it is far
from being thought disgraceful, for the higher orders to engage in
domestic concerns and useful manufactures, "nor is it the least
disparagement for a chief to be found in the midst of his workmen
labouring with his own hands; but it would be reckoned a great disgrace
not to shew superior skill." Like the patriarchs of old, and the heroes
of Homer, these chiefs assist in the preparation of victuals for the
entertainment of their guests.--E.]

The colours with which they dye this cloth are principally red and
yellow. The red is exceedingly beautiful, and I may venture to say a
brighter and more delicate colour than any we have in Europe; that which
approaches nearest is our full scarlet, and the best imitation which Mr
Banks's natural history painter could produce, was by a mixture of
vermilion and carmine. The yellow is also a bright colour, but we have
many as good.

The red colour is produced by the mixture of the juices of two
vegetables, neither of which separately has the least tendency to that
hue. One is a species of fig called here _Matte_, and the other the
_Cordia Sebestina_, or _Etou_; of the fig the fruit is used, and of the
_Cordia_ the leaves.

The fruit of the fig is about as big as a rounceval pea, or very small
gooseberry; and each of them, upon breaking off the stalk very close,
produces one drop of a milky liquor, resembling the juice of our figs,
of which the tree is indeed a species. This liquor the women collect
into a small quantity of cocoa-nut water: To prepare a gill of cocoa-nut
water will require between three and four quarts of these little figs.
When a sufficient quantity is prepared, the leaves of the Etou are well
wetted in it, and then laid upon a plantain leaf, where they are turned
about till they become more and more flaccid, and then they are gently
squeezed, gradually increasing the pressure, but so as not to break
them; as the flaccidity increases, and they become spungy, they are
supplied with more of the liquor; in about five minutes the colour
begins to appear upon the veins of the leaves, and in about ten or a
little more, they are perfectly saturated with it: They are then
squeezed, with as much force as can be applied, and the liquor strained
at the same time that it is expressed.

For this purpose, the boys prepare a large quantity of the Moo, by
drawing it between their teeth, or two little sticks, till it is freed
from the green bark and the branny substance that lies under it, and a
thin web of the fibres only remains; in this the leaves of the Etou are
enveloped, and through these the juice which they contain is strained as
it is forced out. As the leaves are not succulent, little more juice is
pressed out of them than they have imbibed: When they have been once
emptied, they are filled again, and again pressed, till the quality
which tinctures the liquor as it passes through them is exhausted; they
are then thrown away; but the moo, being deeply stained with the colour,
is preserved, as a brush to lay the dye upon the cloth.

The expressed liquor is always received into small cups made of the
plantain leaf, whether from a notion that it has any quality favourable
to the colour, or from the facility with which it is procured, and the
convenience of small vessels to distribute it among the artificers, I do
not know.

Of the thin cloth they seldom dye more than the edges, but the thick
cloth is coloured through the whole surface; the liquor is indeed used
rather as a pigment than a dye, for a coat of it is laid upon one side
only, with the fibres of the moo; and though I have seen of the thin
cloth that has appeared to have been soaked in the liquor, the colour
has not had the same richness and lustre, as when it has been applied in
the other manner.

Though the leaf of the etou is generally used in this process, and
probably produces the finest colour, yet the juice of the figs will
produce a red by a mixture with the species of tournefortia, which they
call _taheinno_, the _pohuc_, the _eurhe_, or _convolvulus
brasiliensis_, and a species of solanum, called _ebooa_; from the use of
these different plants, or from different proportions of the materials,
many varieties are observable in the colours of their cloth, some of
which are conspicuously superior to others.

The beauty, however, of the best, is not permanent; but it is probable
that some method might be found to fix it, if proper experiments were
made, and perhaps to search for latent qualities, which may be brought
out by the mixture of one vegetable juice with another, would not be an
unprofitable employment: Our present most valuable dyes afford
sufficient encouragement to the attempt; for, by the mere inspection of
indigo, woad, dyer's weed, and most of the leaves which are used for the
like purposes, the colours which they yield could never be discovered.
Of this Indian red I shall only add, that the women who have been
employed in preparing or using it, carefully preserve the colour upon
their fingers and nails, where it appears in its utmost beauty, as a
great ornament.

The yellow is made of the bark of the root of the _morinda citrifolia_,
called _nono_, by scraping and infusing it in water; after standing some
time, the water is strained and used as a dye, the cloth being dipped
into it. The morinda, of which this is a species, seems to be a good
subject for examination with a view to dyeing. Brown, in his History of
Jamaica, mentions three species of it, which he says are used to dye
brown; and Rumphius says of the _bancuda angustifolia_, which is nearly
allied to our nono, that it is used by the inhabitants of the East
Indian islands as a fixing drug for red colours, with which it
particularly agrees.

The inhabitants of this island also dye yellow with the fruit of the
tamanu; but how the colour is extracted, we had no opportunity to
discover. They have also a preparation with which they dye brown and
black; but these colours are so indifferent, that the method of
preparing them did not excite our curiosity.

Another considerable manufacture is matting of various kinds; some of
which is finer, and better, in every respect, than any we have in
Europe; the coarser sort serves them to sleep upon, and the finer to
wear in wet weather. With the fine, of which there are also two sorts,
much pains is taken, especially with that made of the bark of the
poerou, the _hibiscus tiliaceus_ of Linnaeus, some of which is as fine as
a coarse cloth: The other sort, which is still more beautiful, they call
vanne; it is white, glossy, and shining, and is made of the leaves of
their _wharrou_, a species of the _pandanus_, of which we had no
opportunity to see either the flowers or fruit: They have other matts,
or, as they call them, _moeas_, to sit or to sleep upon, which are
formed of a great variety of rushes and grass, and which they make, as
they do every thing else that is plaited, with amazing facility and
dispatch.

They are also very dexterous in making basket and wicker-work; their
baskets are of a thousand different patterns, many of them exceedingly
neat; and the making them is an art that every one practises, both men
and women; they make occasional baskets and panniers of the cocoa-nut
leaf in a few minutes, and the women who visited us early in a morning
used to send, as soon as the sun was high, for a few of the leaves, of
which they made little bonnets to shade their faces, at so small an
expence of time and trouble, that, when the sun was again low in the
evening, they used to throw them away. These bonnets, however, did not
cover the head, but consisted only of a band that went round it, and a
shade that projected from the forehead.

Of the bark of the poerou they make ropes and lines, from the thickness
of an inch to the size of a small packthread: With these they make nets
for fishing. Of the fibres of the cocoa-nut they make thread for
fastening together the several parts of their canoes and belts, either
round or flat, twisted or plaited; and of the bark of the _erowa_, a
kind of nettle which grows in the mountains, and is therefore rather
scarce, they make the best fishing lines in the world; with these they
hold the strongest and most active fish, such as bonetas and albicores,
which would snap our strongest silk lines in a minute, though they are
twice as thick.

They make also a kind of seine, of a coarse broad grass, the blades of
which are like flags; these they twist and tie together in a loose
manner, till the net, which is about as wide as a large sack, is from
sixty to eighty fathoms long; this they haul in shoal smooth water, and
its own weight keeps it so close to the ground, that scarcely a single
fish can escape.

In every expedient, indeed, for taking fish, they are exceedingly
ingenious; they make harpoons of cane, and point them with hard wood,
which, in their hands, strike fish more effectually than those which are
headed with iron can do in ours, setting aside the advantage of ours
being fastened to a line, so that the fish is secured if the hook takes
place, though it does not mortally wound him.

Of fish-hooks they have two sorts, admirably adapted in their
construction as well to the purpose they are to answer, as to the
materials of which they are made. One of these, which they call _witlee
witlee_, is used for towing. The shank is made of mother-of-pearl, the
most glossy that can be got; the inside, which is naturally the
brightest, is put behind. To these hooks a tuft of white dog's or hog's
hair is fixed, so as somewhat to resemble the tail of a fish; these
implements, therefore, are both hook and bait, and are used with a rod
of bamboo, and line of _erowa_. The fisher, to secure his success,
watches the flight of the birds which constantly attend the bonetas
when they swim in shoals, by which he directs his canoe, and when he has
the advantage of these guides, he seldom returns without a prize.

The other kind of hook is also made of mother-of-pearl, or some other
hard shell: They cannot make them bearded like our hooks; but, to effect
the same purpose, they make the point turn inwards. These are made of
all sizes, and used to catch various kinds of fish with great success.
The manner of making them is very simple, and every fisherman is his own
artificer: The shell is first cut into square pieces by the edge of
another shell, and wrought into a form corresponding with the outline of
the hook, by pieces of coral, which are sufficiently rough to perform
the office of a file; a hole is then bored in the middle; the drill
being no other than the first stone they pick up that has a sharp
corner; this they fix into the end of a piece of bamboo, and turn it
between the hands like a chocolate-mill; when the shell is perforated,
and the hole sufficiently wide, a small file of coral is introduced, by
the application of which the hook is in a short time completed, few
costing the artificer more time than a quarter of an hour.

Of their masonry, carving, and architecture, the reader has already
formed some idea from the account that has been given of the morais, or
repositories of the dead: The other most important article of building
and carving is their boats; and, perhaps, to fabricate one of their
principal vessels with their tools, is as great a work as to build a
British man-of-war with ours.

They have an adze of stone; a chissel, or gouge, of bone, generally that
of a man's arm between the wrist and elbow; a rasp of coral; and the
skin of a sting-ray, with coral sand, as a file or polisher.

This is a complete catalogue of their tools, and with these they build
houses, construct canoes, hew stone, and fell, cleave, carve, and polish
timber.

The stone which makes the blade of their adzes is a kind of basaltes, of
a blackish or grey colour, not very hard, but of considerable toughness:
They are formed of different sizes; some, that are intended for felling,
weigh from six to eight pounds; others, that are used for carving, not
more than so many ounces; but it is necessary to sharpen both almost
every minute; for which purpose, a stone and a cocoa-nut shell full of
water are always at hand.

Their greatest exploit, to which these tools are less equal than to any
other, is felling a tree: This requires many hands, and the constant
labour of several days. When it is down, they split it, with the grain,
into planks from three to four inches thick, the whole length and
breadth of the tree, many of which are eight feet in the girt, and forty
to the branches, and nearly of the same thickness throughout. The tree
generally used, is, in their language, called _avie_, the stem of which
is tall and straight; though some of the smaller boats are made of the
bread-fruit tree, which is a light spongy wood, and easily wrought. They
smooth the plank very expeditiously and dexterously with their adzes,
and can take off a thin coat from a whole plank without missing a
stroke. As they have not the art of warping a plank, every part of the
canoe, whether hollow or flat, is shaped by hand.[19]

[Footnote 19: One likes to see the exercise of human ingenuity even on
trifles. It flatters the consciousness of one's own powers, and affords,
too, the ground-work of a comparison nowise disadvantageous to what one
believes of his own capabilities. Man has been defined by a certain
writer, an animal that uses instruments for the accomplishment of his
purposes. But the definition is faulty in one important point; it does
not exclude some beings which are not of the species. It is perhaps
impossible to furnish an adequate definition of his nature within the
compass of a single logical proposition. And what matter? Every man in
his senses knows what man is, and can hardly ever be necessitated to
clothe his conception of him, in language metaphysically
unexceptionable. But if any trait be more characteristic than another,
that of invention may safely be asserted to have the pre-eminence. Man,
in effect, evinces the superiority of his nature over all other animals,
by a faculty which he seems exclusively to enjoy, in common with his
Maker, of creating systems, plans, and objects, by the exercise of an
understanding and will adapted to certain ends fore-seen and
predetermined. No tribes of mankind are totally destitute of this
intellectual agency, which is proof, that none are without the merciful
visitations of that great beneficent Being from whom the universe has
its existence. A canoe, a house, a basket, indicates mind. Mind, by the
very constitution of our nature, indicates power and authority. Reason,
indeed, may dispute the necessity or the propriety of such connections
in our thoughts and feelings, but reason cannot possibly set them aside,
or eradicate them from the human breast, though aided by all that
dislike and fear of the solemn truth which the conviction of guilt or
demerit never fails to produce. These Otaheitans, then, are evidences to
themselves of the existence of a power and wisdom superior to their own,
to which they are consciously accountable; and they are without excuse,
if, knowing this, they do not worship God as they ought. It may amuse,
and perhaps instruct the reader, which is the reason for introducing
this note, to enquire how far the inventions of the Otaheitans, as of
all other people, made any way necessary or desirable by the
circumstance of their climate and situation, influence them in their
notions on the subject of their national religions. He will find that
amongst them, as amongst others, the popular religion is founded, not on
the exercise of reason contemplating the works of nature and the
dispensations of Providence, but on principles intimately connected with
man's physical wants, and modified by the peculiarities of ingenuity,
which the artificial supply of those wants occasions; and perhaps he
will make out one remarkable conclusion from the survey of them compared
with others--that where these arts of ingenuity are frequent, and at the
same time applied to very perishable subjects, there the objects of
worship and the kind of religious service, are of a refined nature,
allowing little or nothing of the grossness of _material_ idolatry; and
that, on the contrary, when they are few, but at the same time exercised
on very durable substances, then the greatest tendency exists to the
worship of the mere works of man's hands. Sagacious and clever people,
in other words, have cunningly devised fables for their creeds; the
clumsy-headed and the idle fall down before stocks and stones, as if
there were no such things as memory or imagination or understanding in
the world. It follows, that to extirpate gross idolatry, you must
multiply inventions, and encourage ingenuity--the first operation, it
may be confidently said, to which missionaries among the heathens should
direct their exertions. It is no less certain, that to destroy spiritual
idolatry, nothing short of the mighty power of God himself, implanting a
new principle allied to his own nature, is available. When missionaries
obtain the management and dispensation of this new principle, then, and
only then, they will succeed in making men _worshippers in spirit and in
truth_. But the propriety of their labours is to be evinced on other
grounds, than the success attending them.--E.]