276 CAPTAIN COOK'S VOYAGES 



Cultivated roots and fruits being their principal support, 

 this requires their constant attention to agriculture, which 

 they pursue very diligently, and seem to have brought 

 almost to as great perfection as circumstances will permit. 

 In planting the plantains and yams, they observe so much 

 exactness that, whichever way you look, the rows present 

 themselves regular and complete. 



" It is remarkable that these people, who in many things 

 display much taste and ingenuity, should shew little of 

 either in building their houses. Those of the lower people 

 are poor huts, and very small ; those of the better sort are 

 larger and more comfortable. The dimensions of one of a 

 middling size are about thirty feet long, twenty broad, and 

 tWelve high. Their house is, properly speaking, a thatched 

 roof or shed, supported by posts and rafters, disposed in 

 a very judicious manner. The floor is raised with earth, 

 smoothed, and covered with strong thick matting, and kept 

 very clean. Their whole furniture consists of a bowl or two, 

 in which they make kava, a few gourds, cocoa-nut shells, 

 and some small wooden stools, which serve them for pillows. 

 " Their weapons are clubs of different sorts (in the orna- 

 menting of which they spend much time), spears, and darts. 

 They have also bows and arrows, but these seemed to be 

 designed only for amusement, such as shooting at birds, 

 and not for military purposes. 



"They seem to have no set time for meals. They go to 

 bed as soon as it is dark, and rise with the dawn in the 

 morning. 



" Their private diversions are chiefly singing, dancing, 

 ' and music, performed by the women. The dancing of the 

 men has a thousand different motions with the hands, to 

 which we are entire strangers ; and they are performed 

 with an ease and grace which are not to be described but 

 by those who have seen them. 



" Whether their marriages be made lasting by any kind of 

 solemn contract, we could not determine with precision, 

 but it is certain that the bulk of the people satisfied them- 

 selves with one wife. The chiefs, however, have commonly 

 several women, though some of us were of opinion that 

 there was only one that was looked upon as the mistress 

 of the family. 



" Nothing can be a greater proof of the humanity of these 

 people than the concern they shew for the dead. They beat 

 their teeth with stones, strike a shark's tooth into the head 

 till the blood flows in streams, and thrust spears into the 

 inner part of the thigh, into their sides, below the arm-pits, 

 and through the cheeks into the mouth. All these op^ra- 

 tions convey an idea of such rigorous discipline as must 



