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 aoe 
the straight lines upon ALI lil; 
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 
