Page:Voyages in the Northern Pacific - 1896.djvu/138



HE women of the Sandwich Islands are well made and handsome; their dress consists of ten sheets of cloth of the country, three feet broad and three yards long, wrapped round their waists and descending to the middle of the leg. The outside sheet is prettily painted, and resembles a piece of printed calico: this part of the dress is called pa'ou (pa'u). Their upper garments are composed of sheets, about three yards square; some are painted, some are dyed black, and others white; these they can reduce at pleasure. A tobacco-pipe is hung, with a small looking-glass, round their necks, and they do not consider themselves dressed without them. They also wear an ivory hook, called palava (palaoa), fastened round the neck with the plaited hair of their friends. Some of the women wear their hair long and tied, others cut it close off, turn it