AUG. 1769 



OHETEROA 



125 



this again were painted stripes in many different patterns 

 with infinite regularity, much in the same way as lustring 

 silks in England, all 

 the straight lines upon 

 them being drawn with 

 such accuracy that we 

 were almost in doubt 

 whether or not they 



were stamped on with some kind of press. The red cloth was 

 painted in this manner with black, the lead-coloured with 

 white. Of this cloth, generally the lead-coloured, they had 

 on a short jacket that reached about down to their knees, and 

 made of one piece, with a hole through which they put their 

 heads, the sides of which hole differed from anything I have 

 seen, being stitched with long stitches. This was tied round 

 their bodies by a piece of yellow cloth which passed behind 

 their necks and came across the breasts in two broad stripes 

 crossing each other ; it was then collected round the waist 

 in the form of a belt, under which was another of the red 

 cloth, so that the whole made a very gay and warlike 

 appearance. Some had on their heads caps, as described 

 above, of the tails of tropic birds, but these did not become 

 them so well as a piece of white or lead-coloured cloth, 

 which most of them had wound on their heads like a small 

 turban. 



Their arms consisted of long lances made of the etoa, or 

 hard wood, well polished and sharpened at one end ; of these 

 some were nearly twenty feet long, and scarcely as thick as 

 three fingers ; they had also clubs or pikes of the same 

 wood about seven feet long, well polished, and sharpened 

 at one end into a broad point. How expert they may 

 be in the use of these we cannot tell, but the weapons 

 themselves seem intended more for show than use, as the 

 lance was not pointed with stings of sting-rays, and their 

 clubs or pikes, which must do more execution by their 

 weight than their sharpness, were not more than half as 

 heavy as the smallest I have seen in the other islands. 

 Defensive weapons I saw none ; they, however, guarded 



