This paste is made by taking bread-fruit, which is not thoroughly ripe, and laying it in heaps, covered with leaves, by which means it ferments, the core is then taken out, and the fruit put into a hole lined with grass; it is then again covered with leaves, upon which large stones are placed; this produces a second fermentation, after which it grows sour, and undergoes no change for a long time; they take it from this hole as they have occasion for it, and making it into balls, it is rolled up in plantain-leaves and baked; as it will keep for some weeks after it is dressed, they eat it both hot and cold.
Such is the food of these people, their sauce to which never consists of any thing but salt water. As to their drink, it is generally confined to water, or the milk of the cocoa nuts, though there were instances in which some of them drank so freely of the English liquors, as to become quite intoxicated; this, however, seemed to proceed more from ignorance than design, as they were never known to repeat a debauch of this kind a second time. They were told indeed that the Chiefs sometimes became inebriated by drinking the juice of a plant called _Ava_, but of this they saw no instance during the time they remained on the island.
The Chiefs generally eat alone, unless when visited by a stranger, who is sometimes permitted to become a second in their mess; having nothing to supply the want of a table; they sit on the ground in the shade; leaves of trees being spread before them serve as a table-cloth; their attendants, who are numerous, having placed a basket by the Chiefs, containing their provisions, and a cocoa-nut shell of fresh and salt water, seat themselves round them; they then begin by washing their mouth and hands, after which they eat a mouthful of bread-fruit and fish, dipt in salt water alternately, till the whole is consumed, taking a sup of salt water likewise between almost every morsel. The bread-fruit and fish being all eaten, they next have either plantains or apples, which they never eat without being pared. During this time a soft paste is prepared from the bread-fruit, which they sup out of a cocoa-nut shell; this finishes the meal, and the hands and mouth are again washed as at the beginning.
It is astonishing how much food they eat at a meal; Mr. Banks and some other gentlemen were present when one man devoured three fish the size of a middling carp, four bread fruits as large as a common melon, thirteen or fourteen plantains seven or eight inches long, and above half as big round, and about a quart of the paste made of bread-fruit.
It is not a little surprizing, that the inhabitants of this island, who seemed exceedingly sensible of the pleasures of society, should have an universal aversion to the least intercourse with each other at their meals, and so rigid are they in the observance of this unusual custom, that even brothers and sisters have their separate baskets to contain their provisions, and generally sit some yards distance when they eat, with their backs turned towards each other, not exchanging a single word during the whole time of their repast; the middle aged of superior rank usually betake themselves to sleep after dinner, but what is remarkable, the older people are not so lazy; music, dancing, wrestling, and shooting with the bow, or throwing a lance, constitute a chief part of their diversions.
Flutes which have been mentioned before, and drums, are the only musical instruments among them; their drums are formed of a circular piece of wood, hollow at one end only, which is covered with the skin of a shark, and they are beaten with the hand instead of a stick. Their songs are extempore, and frequently in rhime, but consist of only two lines; these couplets are often sung by way of evening amusements, between sun-set and bed-time, during which time they are not destitute of lights, having candles which they make of an oily nut, fixing them one above another, upon a small stick run through the middle; some of these candles burn a long time, and afford a pretty good light.
Among their other amusements, they have a dance named _Timorodee_, which is performed by ten or a dozen young females, who put themselves into the most wanton attitudes that can possibly be imagined, keeping time during the performance with the greatest nicety and exactness, from these dances the women are immediately excluded on their becoming pregnant.
Many of the principal people of this island, of each sex, have united into an association, in which no woman confines her favours to any particular man; in this manner they obtain a perpetual variety, no one object ever gratifying them but a few days.
These societies are named _Arreoy_, the members of which have meetings where the men amuse themselves by wrestling; and notwithstanding the frequent intercourse which the women have with a variety of men, they dance the _Timorodee_ in such a manner, as they imagine will most excite the desires of the male sex, and which are often gratified upon the spot. There are yet much worse practices. In case any of the women prove with child, which in this manner of life seldom happens, they destroy the helpless infant as soon as it is brought into the world, that it may not be a burden to the father, nor interrupt the mother in the pursuit of her lascivious amusements. Natural affection, however, for the child sometimes happily produces a reformation in the mother, but when this happens, the child’s life is always forfeited, unless the mother can procure a man to adopt it as his child, in which case this inhuman murder is prevented, but both the man and woman are for ever expelled this society. The woman being particularized by the appellation of _Whannownow_, “bearer of children”, which among these people, is considered as a term of the greatest reproach.
Their personal cleanliness is an object that merits peculiar attention. Both sexes never omit to wash with water three times a day; when they rise, at noon, and before they go to rest. They also keep their cloaths extremely clean; so that in the largest communities no disagreeable effluvia ever arises, nor is there any other inconvenience than heat.
The chief manufacture of Otaheite is cloth; of this cloth there are three different sorts, which are made of the bark of as many different trees, viz. the mulberry, the bread-fruit, and a tree not very unlike the wild fig-tree, which is found in some parts of the West Indies. The mulberry-tree, which the Indians call _Aouta_, produces the finest cloth, which is seldom worn but by those of the first rank. The next sort, which is worn by the lower class of people, is made of the bread-fruit tree, and the coarsest of the tree resembling the fig-tree. This last sort, though more useful than the two former on account of its keeping out water, which neither of the others will, is exceedingly scarce, being manufactured but in small quantities.
The same method is used in manufacturing these three cloths, notwithstanding they are all different; a description therefore of their manner of making one, will suffice for the whole.
Having stript off the bark of the trees, it is soaked in water for two or three days, they then take it out and separate the inner bark from the external coat, by scraping it with a shell, after which it is spread out on plantain-leaves, placing two or three layers one over another, and taking care to make it of an equal thickness in every part; it continues in this state till it is nearly dry, when it adheres together so firmly, that it may be taken from the ground without breaking. After this process it is laid on a smooth board, and beaten with an instrument made for that purpose, of a compact heavy wood, called by the natives _Etoa_. This instrument is about fourteen inches long, and seven in circumference; it is of a quadrangular shape, and each of the four sides is marked with longitudinal grooves or furrows, differing in this instance, that there is a regular gradation in the width and depth of the grooves on each of the sides, the coarser side containing not more than ten of these furrows, and the finest above sixty.
They begin to beat their cloth with that side of the mallet where the grooves are deepest and widest, and proceeding regularly with the others, finish with that which has the greatest number; by this beating it is extended in a manner similar to the gold which is formed into leaves by the hammer, and is marked with an appearance of little channels, not unlike those which are visible on paper, but rather deeper; it is in general beat very thin, and when they want it thicker than common, they take two or three pieces and paste them together with a kind of glue, prepared from a root called _Pea_.
This cloth becomes exceedingly white by bleaching, and is died of a red, yellow, brown, or black colour: the first of which is exceedingly beautiful, and equal, if not superior, to any in Europe. They make this red colour from a mixture of the juices of two vegetables, neither of which used separately has this effect.