Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/200

142 means allow the same liberty, but would esteem their victuals polluted if we touched them; in some instances I have seen them throw them away when we had inadvertently defiled them by handling the vessels which contained them.

What can be the motive for so unsocial a custom I cannot in any shape guess, especially as they are a people in every other instance fond of society, and very much so of their women. I have often asked them the reason, but they have as often evaded the question, or answered merely that they did it because it was right, and expressed much disgust when I told them that in England men and women ate together, and the same victuals. They, however, constantly affirm that it does not proceed from any superstitious motive: Eatua, they say, has nothing to do with it. Whatever the motive may be, it certainly affects their outward manners more than their principles; in the tents, for example, we never saw an instance of the women partaking of our victuals at our table, but we have several times seen five or six of them go together into the servants' apartment and there eat very heartily of whatever they could find. Nor were they at all disturbed if we came in while they were doing so, though we had before used all the entreaties we were masters of to invite them to partake with us. When a woman was alone with us, she would often eat even in our company, but always extorted a strong promise that we should not let her country-people know what she had done.

After their meals, and in the heat of the day, they often sleep; middle-aged people especially, the better sort of whom seem to spend most of their time in eating or sleeping. The young boys and girls are uncommonly lively and active, and the old people generally more so than the middle-aged, which perhaps is owing to their excessively dissolute manners.

Diversions they have but few: shooting with the bow is the most usual I have seen at Otahite. It is confined almost entirely to the chiefs; they shoot for distance only,