130 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS cu. vir 
which is cut into sharp teeth, numbering from three to twenty, 
according to the purposes it is to be used for; the upper 
end is fastened to a handle. The teeth are dipped into the 
black liquor, and then driven by quick sharp blows, struck 
upon the handle with a stick used for that purpose, into the 
skin, so deeply that every stroke is followed by a small 
quantity of blood, or serum at least, and the part so marked 
remains sore for many days before it heals. 
I saw this operation performed on the 5th of July on 
the buttocks of a girl about fourteen years of age; for some 
time she bore it with great resolution, but afterwards began 
to complain; and in a little time grew so outrageous that 
all the threats and force her friends could use could hardly 
oblige her to endure it. I had occasion to remain in an 
adjoining house an hour at least after this operation began, 
and yet went away before it was finished, in which time 
only one side was blacked, the other having been done some 
weeks before. 
It is performed between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, 
and so essential is it that I have never seen one single 
person of years of maturity without it. What can be a 
sufficient inducement to suffer so much pain is difficult to 
say; not one Indian (though I have asked hundreds) would 
ever give me the least reason for it. Possibly superstition 
may have something to do with it, nothing else in my opinion 
could be a sufficient cause for so apparently absurd a custom. 
As for the smaller marks upon the fingers, arms, etc., they 
may be intended only for beauty ; our European ladies have 
found the convenience of patches, and something of that 
kind is more useful here where the best complexions are 
much inferior to theirs in England; and yet whiteness is 
esteemed the first essential in beauty. 
They are certainly as cleanly a people as any under the 
sun; they all wash their whole bodies in running water as 
soon as they rise in the morning, at noon, and before they 
sleep at night. If they have not such water near their 
houses, as often happens, they will go a good way to it. As 
for their lice, had they the means only they would certainly 
