466 



FORTIFICATIONS. WEAPONS. CANOES. 



FIG. 210 



twenty feet. Close within the innermost palisade is a stage, 

 twenty feet high, forty feet long, and six broad ; it is sup- 

 ported by strong posts, and is intended as a station for those 

 who defend the place, from which they may annoy the assail- 

 ants by darts and stones, heaps of which lay ready for use. 

 Another stage of the same kind commands the steep avenue 

 from the back, and stands also within the palisade."* Within 

 the palisades they had reduced the ground, " not to one level, 

 but to several, rising in stages one above the other, like an 

 amphitheatre, each of which is enclosed within its separate 

 palisade." These different platforms communicated only by 

 narrow passages, so that each one was capable of separate 

 defence ; and they were provided with large stores of dried 



fish, fern -roots, etc. As the natives, when 

 first discovered, had no bows and arrows, 

 nor even slings, in fact, no " missile weapon 

 except the lance, which was thrown by hand," 

 such positions as these must have been almost 

 impregnable. Their principal weapon was 

 the patoo patoo (fig. 210), which was fas- 

 tened to the wrist by a strong strap, lest 

 it should be wrenched from them. They 

 had no defensive armour, but besides their 

 weapons the chiefs carried a " staff of dis- 

 tinction." 



Their canoes were well built, and resembled 

 those of the other islands. Many of them, 

 however, were broad enough to sail without 

 an outrider. The two ends were often in- 



OO 



patoo patoo. geniously carved.f 



The dead were wrapped in native cloth, and either buried 

 in a contracted posture, or exposed for a while on small square 

 platforms ; when the flesh had decayed away, the bones were 

 * Cook's First Voyage, p. 343. t Forster, 1. c. p. 326. 



