A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels | Page 6

wounds are healed. It is performed upon the youth of both sexes when they are about twelve or fourteen years of age, on several parts of the body, and in various figures, according to the fancy of the parent, or perhaps the rank of the party. The women are generally marked with this stain, in the form of a Z, on every joint of their fingers and toes, and frequently round the outside of their feet: The men are also marked with the same figure, and both men and women have squares, circles, crescents, and ill-designed representations of men, birds, or dogs, and various other devices impressed upon their legs and arms, some of which we were told had significations, though we could never learn what they were. But the part on which these ornaments are lavished with the greatest profusion, is the breech: This, in both sexes, is covered with a deep black; above which, arches are drawn one over another as high as the short ribs. They are often a quarter of an inch broad, and the edges are not straight lines, but indented. These arches are their pride, and are shewn both by men and women with a mixture of ostentation and pleasure; whether as an ornament, or a proof of their fortitude and resolution in bearing pain, we could not determine. The face in general is left unmarked; for we saw but one instance to the contrary. Some old men had the greatest part of their bodies covered with large patches of black, deeply indented at the edges, like a rude imitation of flame; but we were told, that they came from a low island, called Noouoora, and were not natives of Otaheite.
Mr Banks saw the operation of tattowing performed upon the backside of a girl about thirteen years old. The instrument used upon this occasion had thirty teeth, and every stroke, of which at least a hundred were made in a minute, drew an ichor or serum a little tinged with blood. The girl bore it with most Stoical resolution for about a quarter of an hour; but the pain of so many hundred punctures as she had received in that time then became intolerable: She first complained in murmurs, then wept, and at last burst into loud lamentations, earnestly imploring the operator to desist. He was, however, inexorable; and when she began to struggle, she was held down by two women, who sometimes soothed and sometimes chid her, and now and then, when she was most unruly, gave her a smart blow. Mr Banks staid in a neighbouring house an hour, and the operation was not over when he went away; yet it was performed but upon one side, the other having been done some time before; and the arches upon the loins, in which they most pride themselves, and which give more pain than all the rest, were still to be done.
It is strange that these people should value themselves upon what is no distinction; for I never saw a native of this island, either man or woman, in a state of maturity, in whom these marks were wanting: Possibly they may have their rise in superstition, especially as they produce no visible advantage, and are not made without great pain; but though we enquired of many hundreds, we could never get any account of the matter.[6]
[Footnote 6: It is very remarkable that something like this tattowing was practised among the Thracians of old, and was actually considered as an indication of nobility. So says Herodotus in Terps. 6. The notion is no way irrational, that early and semi-civilized people had no other way of distinguishing ranks, than by making visible differences on the skin. The original inhabitants of Britain, it is probable, meant the same thing by their use of colouring substances. Though it is probable enough too, that another purpose was also accomplished thereby, viz. preservation in some degree from the inclemency of the climate. By some authors, it has been imagined, that such painting rendered them more terrible to their enemies, which was the reason for the practice. The Indians of North Carolina, according to the curious account of them by Surveyor-General Lawson, Lond. 1714, had still another reason for something similar. Speaking of their use of varnish, pipe-clay, lamp-black, &c. &c. for colouring their bodies before going out to war, he says, "when these creatures are thus painted, they make the most frightful figures that can be imitated by man, and seem more like devils than human creatures. You may be sure that they are about some mischief when you see them thus painted; for in all the hostilities which have ever been acted against the English at any time, in several of the plantations of America, the savages