1769 DRESS OF OTAHITE 131 



be as free from them as any inhabitants of so warm a climate 

 could be. Those to whom combs were given proved this, 

 for those with whom I was best acquainted kept themselves 

 very clean during our stay by the use of them. Eating lice 

 is a custom which none but children, and those of the inferior 

 people, can be charged with. Their clothes also, as well as 

 their persons, are kept almost without spot or stain ; the 

 superior people spend much of their time in repairing, dye- 

 ing, etc., the cloth, which seems to be a genteel amusement 

 for the ladies here as it is in Europe. 



Their clothes are either of a kind of cloth made of the 

 bark of a tree, or mats of several different sorts ; of all these 

 and of their manner of making them I shall speak in another 

 place ; here I shall only mention their method of covering 

 and adorning their persons, which is most diverse, as they 

 never form dresses, or sew any two pieces together. A 

 piece of cloth, generally two yards wide and eleven long, 

 is sufficient clothing for any one, and this is put on in a 

 thousand different ways, often very genteelly. Their formal 

 dress however is, among the women, a kind of petticoat, parou, 

 wrapped round their hips, and reaching to about the middle 

 of their legs; and one, two, or three pieces of thick cloth, 

 about two and a half yards long and one wide, called tebuta, 

 through a hole in the middle of which they put their heads, 

 and suffer the sides to hang before and behind, the open 

 edges serving to give their arms liberty of movement. Round 

 the ends of this, about as high as their waists, are tied two 

 or three large pieces of thin cloth, and sometimes one or two 

 more thrown loosely over their shoulders, for the rich seem 

 to take the greatest pride in wearing a large quantity of cloth. 

 The dress of the men differs but little from this, their bodies 

 are rather more bare, and instead of the petticoat they have 

 a piece of cloth (maro) passed between their legs and round 

 their waists, which gives them rather more liberty to use 

 their limbs than the* women's dress will allow. Thus much 

 of the richer people ; the poorer sort have only a smaller 

 allowance of cloth given them from the tribes or families to 

 which they belong, and must use that to the best advantage. 



