The Mutiny of the Bounty | Page 9

a
fantastical dress. Mr. Banks was stripped entirely of his European
clothes, and a small piece of cloth was tied round his middle. His face
and body were then smeared with charcoal and water, as low as the
shoulders, till they were as black as those of a negro: the same
operation was performed on the rest, among whom were some women,
who were reduced to a state as near to nakedness as himself; the boy
was blacked all over, after which the procession set forward, the chief
mourner having mumbled something like a prayer over the body. It is
the custom of the Indians to fly from these processions with the utmost
precipitation. On the present occasion several large bodies of the
natives were put to flight, all the houses were deserted, and not an
Otaheitan was to be seen. The body being deposited on the stage, the
mourners were dismissed to wash themselves in the river, and to
resume their customary dresses and their usual gaiety.
They are, however, so jealous of any one approaching these abodes of
the dead, that one of Cook's party, happening one day to pull a flower
from a tree which grew in one of these sepulchral inclosures, was

struck by a native who saw it, and came suddenly behind him. The
morai of Oberea was a pile of stone-work raised pyramidically, two
hundred and sixty-seven feet long, eighty-seven feet wide, and
forty-four feet high, terminating in a ridge like the roof of a house, and
ascended by steps of white coral stone neatly squared and polished,
some of them not less than three feet and a half by two feet and a half.
Such a structure, observes Cook, raised without the assistance of iron
tools, or mortar to join them, struck us with astonishment, as a work of
considerable skill and incredible labour.
On the same principle of making himself acquainted with every novelty
that presented itself, Captain Cook states that 'Mr. Banks saw the
operation of tattooing performed upon the back 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 stayed in the neighbouring house an hour, and the
operation was not over when he went away.'
The sufferings of this young lady did not however deter the late
President of the Royal Society from undergoing the operation on his
own person.
The skill and labour which the Otaheitans bestow on their large double
boats is not less wonderful than their stone morais, from the felling of
the tree and splitting it into plank, to the minutest carved ornaments
that decorate the head and the stern. The whole operation is performed
without the use of any metallic instrument. 'To fabricate one of their
principal vessels with their tools is,' says Cook, 'as great a work as to
build a British man of war with ours.' The fighting boats are sometimes

more than seventy feet long, but not above three broad; but they are
fastened in pairs, side by side, at the distance of about three feet; the
head and stern rise in a semi-circular form, the latter to the height of
seventeen or eighteen feet. To build these boats, and the smaller kinds
of canoes;--to build their houses, and finish the slight furniture they
contain;--to fell, cleave, carve, and polish timber for various
purposes;--and, in short, for every conversion of wood--the tools they
make use of are the following: an adze of stone; a chisel 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.
The persons of the Otaheitan men are in general tall, strong,
well-limbed and finely shaped; equal in size to the largest of Europeans.
The women of superior rank are also above the middle stature of
Europeans, but the inferior class are rather below it. The complexion of
the former class is that which we call a brunette, and the skin is most
delicately smooth and soft. The shape of the face