Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/244

186 hand-to-hand, and certainly well contrived for splitting skulls, as it weighs not less than four or five pounds, and has sharp edges excellently polished.

The people were, in general, of a middling size, though there was no one who measured more than six feet. Their colour was a dark brown. Their lips were stained with something put under the skin (as in the Otahite tattow), and their faces marked with deeply-engraved furrows, also coloured black, and formed in regular spirals. Of these, the oldest people had much the greatest quantity, and most deeply channelled, in some not less than $1/16$ part of an inch. Their hair was black, and tied up on the tops of their heads in a little knot, in which were stuck feathers of various birds in different tastes, according to the humour of the wearer. Sometimes they had one knot on each side, and pointing forwards, which made a most disagreeable appearance. In their ears they generally wore a large bunch of the milk-white down of some bird. The faces of some were painted with a red colour in oil, some all over, others in parts only. In their hair was much oil, which had very little smell, but more lice than ever I saw before. Most of them had a small comb, neatly enough made, sometimes of wood, sometimes of bone, which they seem to prize much. A few had on their faces or arms regular scars, as if made with a sharp instrument, such as I have seen on the faces of negroes. The inferior sort were clothed in something that very much resembled hemp: the loose strings of this were fastened together at the top, and it hung down about two feet like a petticoat. Of these garments they wore two, one round their shoulders, and the other about their waists. The richer had garments probably of a finer sort of the same stuff, most beautifully made, and exactly like that of the South American Indians at this day, and as fine, or finer, than a piece which I bought at Rio de Janeiro for thirty-six shillings, and which was esteemed uncommonly cheap at that price. Their boats were not large, but well made, something like our whale boats, not longer. The bottom was the trunk of a tree hollowed out, and very