Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/339

] tion of arec nuts; for we saw in their mouths none of the marks which are produced by the mastication of betel. We observed those articles of luxury only in the possession of the chiefs, for whom they are probably reserved.

Some of those savages wore bracelets formed of large shells, among which we observed sea ears, ground in the middle and the edges.

Most of them had different kinds of shells appended to the inferior lobes of their ears, which, when pierced, they are in the habit of extending so prodigiously that they descend lower than their shoulders, as appears in Plate III. It seemed that they produced this great distension, by introducing elastic hoops into the holes. The only child we saw was furnished with two such hoops.

Their hair is crisped and black; but they frequently render it red with a mixture of ochre and oil, and sometimes they tie it up with a fillet of bark. Their skin is a light black, which they sometimes adorn with red figures in different parts of the body.

They carried neither bows nor clubs but only spears, from about five feet to six feet and a half in length. (See Plate XXVIII. Fig. 25.) The vitreous volcanic lava, of which their heads were formed, was ground to a sharp edge on each side, about