35© 
A VOYAGE TO 
1777. this, there were wreftlihg and boxing-matches for about 
J “ Iy ' , half an hour. Then two men feated themfelves before the 
prince, and made fpeeches, addreffed, as I thought, en¬ 
tirely to him. With this the folemnity ended, and the 
whole alfemhly broke up. 
I now went and examined the feveral bafkets which had 
been prefented; a curiofity that I was not allowed before 
to indulge; becaufe every thing was then taboo . But the 
folemnity being now over, they became, limply, what I 
found them to be, empty bafkets. So that, whatever they 
were fuppofed to contain, was emblematically reprefented. 
And fo, indeed, was every other thing which had been 
brought in procehion, except the filh. 
We endeavoured, in vain, to find out the meaning, not 
only of the ceremony in general, which is called Natche , 
but of its different parts. We feldom got any other anfwer 
to our inquiries, but taboo ; a word, which, I have before 
obferved, is applied to many other things. But, as the 
prince was, evidently, the principal perfon concerned in 
it; and as we had been told by the king, ten days before 
the celebration of the Natche , that the people would bring 
in yams for him and his fon to eat together; and as he 
even defcribed fome part of the ceremony, we concluded, 
from what he had then faid, and from what we now faw, 
that an oath of allegiance, if I may fo exprefs myfelf, or 
folemn promife, was, on this occalion, made to the prince, 
as the immediate fucceffor to the regal dignity, to ftand by 
him, and to furnilh him with the feveral articles that were 
here emblematically reprefented. This feems the more 
probable, as all the principal people of the illand, whom 
we had ever feen, ahifted in the proceflions. But, be this 
as it may, the whole was conduced with a great deal of 
3 myfterious 
