FIRST VOYAGE 45 



facture, in which, in many respects, they excel the 

 Europeans. They make use of the coarser sort to sleep on, 

 and in wet weather they wear the finer. 



They greatly excel in the basket and wicker work ; both 

 men and women employ themselves at it, and can make it of 

 a variety of patterns. 



Their fishing-lines are esteemed the best in the world, 

 made of the bark of the Erowa, a kind of nettle which grows 

 on the mountains ; they are strong enough to hold the 

 heaviest and most vigorous fish, such as bonitas and 

 albicores ; in short, they are extremely ingenious in every 

 expedient for taking all kinds of fish. 



The tools which these people make use of for building 

 houses, constructing canoes, hewing stone, and for felling, 

 cleaving, carving, and polishing timber, consist of nothing 

 more than an adze of stone, and a chisel of bone, most 

 commonly that of a man's arm ; and for a file, or polisher, 

 they make use of a rasp of coral, and coral sand. 



Some of their smaller boats are made of the bread-fruit 

 tree,which is wrought with much difficulty, being of a light, 

 spongy nature. Their canoes are all shaped with the hand, 

 the Indians not being acquainted with the method of 

 warping a plank. 



Their language is soft and musical, abounding in vowels, 

 and is easy to be pronounced. But whether it is copious, 

 Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander were not sufficiently acquainted 

 with it to know. As few either of their nouns or verbs are 

 declinable, it must consequently be very imperfect. They 

 found means, however, to be mutually understood without 

 much difficulty. 



The management of the sick falls to the lot of the priests ; 

 and their method of cure consists chiefly of prayers and cere- 

 monies, which are repeated till the patients recover or die. 



The religion of these people appeared to be exceedingly 

 mysterious. They emphatically style the Supreme Being 

 the causer of earthquakes ; but their prayers are more 

 generally addressed to Tane, supposed to be a son of the 

 first progenitors of nature. 



They believe in the existence of the soul in a separate 

 state ; and that there are two situations, differing in their 

 degrees of happiness, which they consider as receptacles for 

 different ranks, but not as places of reward and punishment. 

 They suppose that their chiefs and principal people will 

 have the preference to those of inferior rank, as they imagine 

 their actions no way influence their future state, and that 

 their deities take no cognizance of them whatsoever. 



The office of priest is hereditary ; there are several of 

 them, and of all ranks ; the chief is respected next to their 



