Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/263

Rh themselves up into a kind of artificial courage, which does not allow them time to think much.

1st December. It is now some time since I mentioned their custom of eating human flesh, as I had been for a long time loth to believe that any human beings could have among them so brutal a custom. I am now, however, convinced, and shall here give a short account of what we have heard from the Indians concerning it.

At Taoneroa, where we first landed, the boys whom we had on board mentioned it of their own accord, asking whether the meat they ate was not human flesh, as they had no idea of any animal so large, except a man, till they saw our sheep. They, however, seemed ashamed of the custom, saying that the tribe to which they belonged did not use it, but that another living very near them did. Since then we have never failed to ask the question, and we have without one exception been answered in the affirmative. Several times, as at Tolago and here, the people have put themselves into a heat by defending the custom, which Tupia, who had never before heard of such a thing, takes every occasion to speak ill of, exhorting them often to leave it off. They, however, universally agree that they eat none but the bodies of those of their enemies who are killed in war; all others are buried.

3rd. Many canoes visited us in the morning; one very large carrying eighty-two people. Dr. Solander and myself went ashore; we found few plants, and saw but few people, but they were perfectly civil. We went on their invitation to their little town, which was situated at the bottom of a cove, without the least defence. One of the old men here showed us the instrument with which they stain their bodies; it was exactly like that used at Otahite. We saw also here a man who had been shot on the 29th while attempting to steal our buoy. The ball had gone through the fleshy part of his arm and grazed his breast. The wound was open to the air, without the smallest application upon it, yet it had as good an appearance, and seemed to give him as little pain as if it had had the very best dressing