A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels | Page 9

is covered, some inches deep, with soft hay; over this are laid mats, so that the whole is one cushion, upon which they sit in the day, and sleep in the night. In some houses, however, there is one stool, which is wholly appropriated to the master of the family; besides this, they have no furniture, except a few little blocks of wood, the upper side of which is hollowed into a curve, and which serve them for pillows.
The house is indeed principally used as a dormitory; for, except it rains, they eat in the open air, under the shade of the next tree. The clothes that they wear in the day serve them for covering in the night; the floor is the common bed of the whole household, and is not divided by any partition. The master of the house and his wife sleep in the middle, next to them the married people, next to them the unmarried women, and next to them, at a little distance, the unmarried men; the servants, or toutous, as they are called, sleep in the open air, except it rains, and in that case they come just within the shed.[7]
[Footnote 7: If the Otaheitans were little benefited by the attempts of Europeans to rear cattle among them, as we have seen, they were certainly indebted for the introduction of another race of animals, not at all likely to degenerate or die out in a climate so much more congenial to their nature, than the comparatively inclement regions of our hemisphere, where, notwithstanding the activity of hostile hands, they are known to propagate with most vexatious activity. "Their houses," says the missionary account, "are full of fleas, which harbour in the floor, and are very troublesome, though the natives are much less affected by them than we are; they say they were brought to them by the Europeans. One of our missionaries writes, he has been obliged to get up at midnight, and to run into the sea to cool himself, and to get rid of the swarm of disagreeable companions." The poor missionary was worse off among the fleas, than even Mr Barrow in the midst of the musquitoes, from which, it does not seem, that he ever had occasion to seek refuge, in any such untimely ablution.--E.]
There are, however, houses of another kind, belonging to the chiefs, in which there is some degree of privacy. These are much smaller, and so constructed as to be carried about in their canoes from place to place, and set up occasionally, like a tent; they are enclosed on the sides with cocoa-nut leaves, but not so close as to exclude the air, and the chief and his wife sleep in them alone.
There are houses also of a much larger size, not built either for the accommodation of a single chief, or a single family; but as common receptacles for all the people of a district. Some of them are two hundred feet long, thirty broad, and, under the ridge, twenty feet high; these are built and maintained at the common expence of the district, for the accommodation of which they are intended; and have on one side of them a large area, inclosed with low pallisadoes.
These houses, like those of separate families, have no walls. Privacy, indeed, is little wanted among people who have not the idea of indecency, and who gratify every appetite and passion before witnesses, with no more sense of impropriety than we feel when we satisfy our hunger at a social board with our family or friends. Those who have no idea of indecency with respect to actions, can have none with respect to words; it is, therefore, scarcely necessary to observe, that, in the conversation of these people, that which is the principal source of their pleasure, is always the principal topic; and that every thing is mentioned without any restraint or emotion, and in the most direct terms, by both sexes.[8]
[Footnote 8: Let us for once hear the missionary account, in palliation at least, of such clamant enormities. "They have no partitions in their houses; but it may be affirmed, they have in many instances more refined ideas of decency than ourselves; and one long a resident, scruples not to declare, that he never saw any appetite, hunger and thirst excepted, gratified in public. It is too true, that for the sake of gaining our extraordinary curiosities, and to please our brutes, they have appeared immodest in the extreme. Yet they lay the charge wholly at our door, and say, that Englishmen are ashamed of nothing, and that we have led them to public acts of indecency never before practised among themselves. Iron here, more precious than gold, bears down every barrier of restraint. Honesty and modesty yield to