Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/305

1770 iris; in short, nothing is omitted which could render a human shape frightful and deformed, which I suppose they think terrible. During this time they brandish their spears, hack the air with their patoo-patoos, and shake their darts as if they meant every moment to begin the attack, singing all the while in a wild but not disagreeable manner, ending every strain with a loud and deep-drawn sigh, in which they all join in concert. The whole is accompanied by strokes struck against the sides of the boats with their feet, paddles, and arms; the whole in such excellent time, that though the crews of several canoes join in concert, you rarely or never heard a single stroke wrongly placed.

This we called the war-song; for though they seemed fond of using it upon all occasions, whether in war or peace, they, I believe, never omit it in their attacks. They have several other songs which their women sing prettily enough in parts. They were all in a slow melancholy style, but certainly have more taste in them than could be expected from untaught savages. Instrumental music they have none, unless a kind of wooden pipe, or the shell called Triton's Trumpet, with which they make a noise not very unlike that made by boys with a cow's horn, may be called such. They have, indeed, also a kind of small pipe of wood, crooked and shaped almost like a large tobacco pipe, but it has hardly more music in it than a whistle with a pea. But on none of these did I ever hear them attempt to play a tune or sing to their music.

That they eat the bodies of such of their enemies as are killed in war, is a fact which they universally acknowledged from our first landing at every place we came to. It was confirmed by an old man, whom we supposed to be the chief of an Indian town very near us, bringing at our desire six or seven heads of men, preserved with the flesh on. These it seems the people keep, after having eaten the brains, as trophies of their victories, in the same manner as the Indians of North America do scalps; they had their ornaments in their ears as when alive, and some seemed to have false eyes. The old man was very jealous of showing them;