1769 MUSIC 143 



with arrows unfledged, kneeling upon one knee, and dropping 

 the bow from their hands the instant the arrow parts from 

 it. I measured a shot made by Tubourai Tamaide ; it was 

 274 yards, yet he complained that as the bow and arrows 

 were bad he could not shoot as far as he ought to have 

 done. At Ulhietea bows were less common, but the people 

 amused themselves by throwing a kind of javelin eight or 

 nine feet long at a mark, which they did with a good deal 

 of dexterity, often striking the trunk of a plantain tree, 

 their mark, in the very centre. I could never observe that 

 either these or the Otahite people staked anything ; they 

 seemed to contend merely for the honour of victory. 



Music is very little known to them, and this is the more 

 wonderful as they seem very fond of it. They have only 

 two instruments, the flute and the drum. The former is 

 made of a hollow bamboo, about a foot long, in which are 

 three holes : into one of these they blow with one nostril, 

 stopping the other nostril with the thumb of the left hand ; 

 the other two they stop and unstop with the forefinger of the 

 left, and middle finger of the right hand. By this means 

 they produce four notes, and no more, of which they have 

 made one tune that serves them for all occasions. To it 

 they sing a number of songs, pehay as they call them, 

 generally consisting of two lines, affecting a coarse metre, 

 and generally in rhyme. Maybe these lines would appear 

 more musical if we well understood the accent of their 

 language, but they are as downright prose as can be written. 

 I give two or three specimens of songs made upon our 

 arrival. 



Te de pahai de parow-a 



Ha maru no mina. 



E pahah tayo malama tai ya 

 No tabane tonatou whannomi ya. 



E turai eattu terara patee whennua toai 

 Ino o maio pretane to whennuaia no tute. 



At any time of the day when they are lazy they amuse 

 themselves by singing the couplets, but especially after dark ; 



