116 



porter's JQUKNALf 



White among those people is considered sacred, A. 

 white flag is an emblem of peace, and a white flag marks 

 out their tabooed and most sacred places. They have 

 also a method of designating the places which are tabooed 

 by bundles of long sticks, about half the size of the wrist, 

 with the bark stripped off and placed on end. These are 

 planted on all the platforms of stones, where women are 

 not permitted to approach, and this practice appears more 

 generally adopted than any other. The sticks employed 

 on such occasions are of a very light and white kind of soft 

 wood, (used by the natives for producing fire by friction,) 

 of the bark of which they make cordage of a handsome 

 and strong quality. 



It remains for me now to say something of their domes- 

 tic economy, their furniture, utensils, and implements. I 

 have already described their houses, from which it will be 

 seen that their apartments are few, and that however nu- 

 merous may be the family, they have but one common 

 sleeping place. This is covered with dry grass, on which 

 mats are spread for the chief persons ; the servants and 

 others sleep on the grass alone, or on mats if they have 

 them. It has been represented by former voyagers, that 

 the women of this great nation distributed among the 

 South Sea Islands, are not permitted to sit at meals with 

 the men, or allowed to eat pork on any occasion. Those 

 people are an exception ; men, women, and children eat 

 together, although each have their messes in separate dish- 

 es, and the women are not prohibited from eating pork 

 except during the existence of taboos. Even then they 

 eat it, if the men are not present, or if they will only have 

 the complaisance to turn away their faces, and not seem to 

 notice them ; which they generally do. Among tribes not 

 tabooed 1 have seen men and women eating pork together, 

 which was the case at Lewis's Bay, as I before mentioned* 

 The men and women are both remarkably fond of pork, 

 and from their desire to eat it one would suppose that it 

 was an article of great rarity and scarcity among them, as 

 in fact it is. For although the island abounds in hogs, 

 the natives seldom kill them for the use of their families, 

 but keep them for their feasts ; and, on such occasions, 

 they will frequently kill five or six hundred at a time. If 

 a relation die, they have a feast on the Qccasion ; and they 



