340 COCOA-NUT TREE. 



in the southern Pacific Ocean, are instances of 

 tliis wonderful provision of nature. 



At the Marquesas and Washington Islands, 

 " the Tahunas, or priests, have a distinctive 

 dress, consisting of a cap, formed from a cocoa- 

 nut leaf. A part of the stem, six or eight inches 

 in length, is placed perpendicularly over the 

 forehead, and the leaflets still attached to it, are 

 passed round the head, on each side, and neatly 

 fastened together behind. 



" Besides this article on the head, they wear 

 a cape of the same material. In this the stem 

 is split till within an inch or two of one of the 

 ends : it is then passed round the neck, so that 

 the extremities rest on each shoulder, and the 

 separated ends are tied together. The ribs run- 

 ning througli the leaflets being taken out, they 

 hang over the chest and back. 



" These articles are usually worn by them on 

 ordinary occasions, and always when in discharge 

 of the services connected with their oflice."* 



At the same islands, one of their traditions 

 gives an account of the introduction of the cocoa- 

 nut tree. It is, " that a god, on a visit to them 

 from an island which they call Oatamaaua, find- 

 ing them destitute of this important tree, fetched 

 it to them in a stone canoe : the whole trans- 

 * Stewart's South Seas. 1829, 1830, p. 175. 



