TANNA. 207 



all illnesses, and is eflected, not by opening a vein, but 

 simply by making incisions with a split bamboo. In grave 

 cases, or such as are considered dangerous, they have re- 

 course to a heroic method, that of cauterising the sole of 

 the foot. They incase their dead in layers taken from the 

 stem of the banana tree, and Iniry them the day after their 

 death in the following manner : they first dig a hole about 

 four or five feet deep, and then scoop out from one of its 

 sides a hoi-izontal niche in which they deposit the corpse. 



Tannese people are under the middle stature, with few 

 exceptions. Their colour is darker than that of any other 

 islanders I had met with. They dye their bodies and faces 

 red or black. Eed is the favourite colour, and it is obtained 

 from a red earth they get principally from Anatom. Black 

 is the sign of mourning ; they make it with oil and pounded 

 charcoal. Their hair is frizzled, and often of a light brown 

 colour, rather tlian black. The women wear it short, but 

 have it all laid out in a forest of little erect curls, about an 

 mch and a half long. The men sometimes do up their 

 hair in long pendent tails. They pierce the septum of 

 the nose to insert a small piece of wood or reed, and wear 

 ear-rings of tortoise shell half an inch wide, and from two 

 to four inches in diameter, sometimes half a dozen of various 

 sizes in one enr, which enlarges tiie aperture so fearfully, 

 that a child's hand might pass through some of tlieni. Tliey 

 do not tattoo. The women are covered with girdles hang- 

 ing down below the knees, made from the rolled and dried 

 fibres of the banana stem. The clothing of the men is as 



