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them to be somewhat horrified at his naiveté, he added, in order to re assure them, that he never ate Europeans; but merely the mischievous inhabitants of the banks of the Thames River and Mercury Bay. "The people of Europe," said he, 66 are our fathers, since they furnish us with powder to destroy our enemies." Those who fall in battle are invariably cooked, and eaten by the victors; but it does not appear to be certain that they devour the slaves whom they sacrifice on various occasions, though it is extremely probable that they are kept and fattened expressly for the purpose, as hogs and oxen are with us.

The fern-root, of which they make their bread, is collected by slaves, and exposed to the sun to dry. It is then pounded in a wooden mortar, and reduced to a brown paste, viscons like glue; and containing considerable quantities of a woody kind of rind, which covers the root. This paste is then kneaded in small wooden troughs, and baked for use. The bread of the fern-root is far from being very nutritive, resembling, in some measure, that which is made in Finland, from the bark of the fir-trees; though certainly superior to the loaves of clay which certain subjects of the Russian empire are reduced to devour. Hanger, however, is not nice; and M. Lesson, remarks, that he has beheld the New Zealander eating, with the sensuality of a gourmand, fish which was not only stinking, but half rotten. To preserve a certain kind of small fish, for which they appear to have a strong predilection, they press them together, as the Tahitians do their bananas, until nearly all their moisture is drained out, and in this condition preserve them for future use.

The food of a people has certainly some connection with their national character, either as cause or effect; mild and peaceful tribes preferring simple and bloodless repasts, while the warlike and the ferocious love, like the lion and the tiger, to satisfy their fiercer appetites with the flesh of animals. The inhabitants of the island of Rotouma, offer, in this respect, a striking contrast to those of New Zealand. The former rise early in the morning and, before tasting any food, issue forth from their hnts to enjoy for a few moments the delicious freshness of the dawn. About eight o'clock they breakfast upon fruits; and having performed some trifling labour, meet together again about eleven, to collect the cocoanuts, and other articles which constitute their second and principal meal. These articles consist chiefly of vegetables, or of shell and other fish. These simple people, however, are great gourmands in their

way; and, like their brethren of Otaheite, love to vary the pleasure of eating as much as possible. They cut one of the breadfruit in two, take out the central portion, and having filled up the hollow space with the milk of the cocoa, of four different ages, cook the whole in a banana-leaf. Their beverage consists of rain water, the island possessing no springs, and the milk of the cocoa nut.

The Mongol-Pelagian tribes, who, according to M. Lesson, inhabit the immense Archipelago, termed, from Charles 11. of Spain, the Caroline Islands, are found in almost every stage of civilization. But if the natives of the western portion of the immense chain of the Carolines have made some progress in the knowledge of the useful arts; their brethren of the eastern extremity are still plunged in the lowest depths of barbarism. The inhabitants, for example, of Gilbert's Archipelago, of Sydenham and Henderville Islands; and in fact, of all the small archipelagoes, and islands in the neighbourhood, possess scarcely any thing human but the form; neither arts, nor nanners, nor feelings. Their food consists almost entirely of fish, and even of this, the supply is so much below the demand, that according to Mr. Malthus's interpretation of the practice. they compress the abdomen with a sort of cord, wound many times round the body, to impede the passage of their food, and thus lessen the cravings of hunger. Was it from these refined people, that our fashionable exquisites took the hint of compressing their abdomen with stays, for the purpose of lessening their butchers' and bakers' bills, in order to allow that of their tailor to be increased.

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Perhaps the principal reason why these various tribes of men make so very slow a progress in civilization, may be discovered in the circumstance, that they are clothed, as it were, by the sunshine of their climate; and fed without labour, by the spontaneous bounty and fertility of their soil. In our northern regions we are in a state of continual warfare with the climate, which changing perpetually like Proteus, attacks us now under one form, now under another. This compels us to have recourse to various inventions to guard against the open or insidious approaches of our enemy; and our dress, our dwellings, our umbrellas, our covered carriages, &c., are merely so many shields and bucklers, with which we protect ourselves against the inclemency of the weather. People who suffer no inconvenience from going naked, are slow in inventing clothes; and when nature herself takes the business of agriculture ont of the hands of man, and with her sunshine and her

benignant showers, ploughs and sows in his stead; man naturally enough stauds by idle, shrugs up his shoulders, and allows his provisions to drop, as it were, into his mouth.

The greater number of the South Sea Islanders, whether we denominate them Mongol-Pelagians, Oceanians, or Papous, are very nearly in the position above described. 66 They toil not, neither do they spin," for the most part; and yet, with very few exceptions, they live like princes; that is, they eat and driuk and do nothing. With dress, however, none of them are greatly incumbered, being in general of Thomson's opinion, that people when unadorned are adorned the most; that is, preferring Nature's manufacture before their own. The beaux and belles of Otaheite, have latterly formed an exception to this rule; for ever since they have become Christians, their passion for finery has been extreme, it being, apparently a received opinion among them, as it is among many other nations, that a man puts on civilization and refinement with us coat and breeches; the meanness or magnificence of the latter, being the standard by which we are to estimate the former.

for their passion for ornament. The Tabitians, and the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, delight, like the Greeks of old, to crown themselves with flowers, and invariably select for this purpose those which are distinguished for the most brilliant colours, or the sweetest odours, such as the hibiscus, rosa sinensis, and the gardenia florida. These they twine about their heads, like Anacreon, in wreaths, or pass through little holes made in the lobes of their ears, in order the more easily to inhale their delicious fragrance. The inhabitants of the Marquesas and Washington islands, as well as those of Rotooma and the Fidjis, attach the highest value to the teeth of the Spermaceti whale, which, rendered sacred by we know not what superstitious ideas, are in their eyes, says the naturalist, exactly what diamonds are with us., The New Zealanders, and the natives of Easter Island, adorn their tresses with tufts of feathers instead of flowers, and, suspend small round bits of painted wood in the lobes of their ears. Several of these islanders manufacture a kind of mass, or visor with the leaves of the cocoa-tree, to defend their faces from the scorching rays of the sun; and this species of armour has a somewhat pleasing and graceful appearance when worn by young persons.

The habit of anointing the body with oil is, as might be expected, universal among the Oceanians; those living within the tropics making use of cocoa-nut oil, while the rest are compelled to put up with fish or seal-oil. This fashion, which the heat of the climate excuses, if it does not render it necessary, communicates an unsavoury odour to the bodies of these savage belles.

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At Rotooma, and in the Sandwich islands, the women have the extraordinary practice of powdering their hair with coral lime; while in several of these same islands they streak their bodies with the yellow

The inhabitants of the Marquesas and Sandwich islands wear extremely light and imperfect garments. Such tribes of the Oceanian race as are induced by the rigour or vicissitudes of their climate to have recourse to more ample garments, adjust their light, drapery about their forms in the most graceful manner. The women frequently throw a large piece of stuff over their shoulders, which, descending in undulating folds, to the feet, resembles in a very striking manner the costume of the ancients. The chiefs alone enjoy the prerogative of wearing the Tipoota, a garment similar to the Poncho of the South Americans, described by General Miller and others. The New Zealanders, placed, as M. Lesson observes, beyond the tro-powder of the curcuma, and daub their pics, have been compelled, by the rigour of their climate to adopt a more warm and ample costume than their brethren of the equatorial regions; and finding, in the silky fibres of the Phormium, a substance admirably adapted for their purpose, they have applied themselves to the fabrication of fine, but thick mats, in wkich, notwith- In several of the Caroline Islands the standing the simplicity of their instru-inhabitants wear a sort of Chinese hat, ments, they exhibit considerable skill, Their mantles are still thicker and warmer than the mats, and generally descend half way below the knee. They are often composed of dog skins, sewed together, with the fur outwards.

Though sparing, even to indelicacy, in their dress, the Oceanians are remarkable

faces with ocre. Another practice, of which no traces are discoverable among any other wild people, except a few scattered tribes of Northern Asia and America, is to wear large patches of black or sky-blue on the face, like the fashionables of the last century.

fabricated from a species of grass; and their ornaments, which are numerous, are formed of shells. The tribes who wander on the north coast of New Guinea, having continual communications with the Malays, and particularly with the Guebeans, receive from them in exchange for slaves, or other commodities, birds of paradise, tor

toise-shell, or red or blue cotton, which are set apart for the use of the women. Finding it somewhat difficult to obtain ornaments and finery external to the body, they betake themselves to operating upon their own skin, and endeavour to improve their appearance, and adds force to their natural charms, by making incisions on their shoulders and breasts, the cicatrices of which are artificially raised into knots and bunips, like the organs of thinking on a phrenological skull. The Paponas, whose frizzled hair is so abundant that they appear at a distance as if they had put their heads into bee-hives, or Scotch porridge pots, adorn their woolly locks with a mixture of grease and ocre, with which they likewise make streaks upon their face and breast, and thus greatly improve upon their natural ugliness. Man, almost every where, employs the leisure which Providence bestows upon him in foolery of some kind or another. Here, the time and ingenuity which might produce a more comfortable hut, better clothing, or more savoury or nourishing food, are thrown away upon toys formed with feathers, mother-of-pearl, or shells, which are stuck upon the head, the girdle, or on the arins they use in battle. Another ornament, universally in use among this race, is a species of bracelet of dazzling white ness, fabricated with the teeth of the barbirossa, or with ivory, and exactly resembling the bracelets found upon the arms of Egyptian mummies. Another extraordinary resemblance between their customs and those of the ancient Egyp tians is discoverable in the wooden pillows, adorned with the head of a sphynx, upon which they repose the head when sleeping, and which, when compared with those found in the catacombs under the heads of mummies, and brought to France by various travellers, have been found to be exactly similar,

The most remarkable feature, perhaps, in the costume of the Otaheitans is, the mixture of European and native articles which it sometimes exhibits; for, as the number of ships trading to those countries, compared with the amount of the populaton, is small, the majority of the natives can · seldom procare á complete set of European clothes. Accordingly, you will sometimes encounter a gay savage with an English shirt, hát, and silk handkerchief, as a cravat, while the native maro, with its scanty proportions, supplies the place of breeches, and the tipoota, or poncho of artificial papyrus, waves its ample folds over his shoulders. The tipoota is generally white, but the edges and corners are variegated with a border of leaves of brilliant red.

The women who, for the most part, have abjured as far as possible all native mamufacture, begin to dress in the English fashion, wearing gowns, Indian silk' hand-i kerchiefs and ribbons; which, our naturalist assures us, disfigure them confoundedly. We suppose he would › have found them more agreeable in puris · naturulibus. Among the few articles of home manufacture which the dames still tolerate, from necessity, are the beautiful straw hats, which are as fine, silky, and brilliant, as the best Leghorns. These they fabricate with their own fair hands, and we trust the missionaries will teach them, for the interests of morality, that it is one of the duties of Christianity to make straw hats, or something of that kind, for there is nothing so favourable to chastity as constant employment. other article of Tahiti fabric is the waterproof mantle which they throw over their shoulders in rainy weather, and will probably continue to prefer to English cottons or silks, as tropical showers are great logicians in matters of this kind.

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So soon as man begins to feel the desire to wear a better coat, or inhabit a better house than his neighbour, he may be regarded as having fairly entered upon the high road to civilization. Nations that build their houses and fashion their gar ments after a received model are stationary, and can, in fact, have few motives for being otherwise. This is pretty nearly the case with all the nations inhabiting the islands of the South Sea. Each tribe has one original type," bequeathed to them by the wisdom of their ancestors, according to which every mother's son among them, whether he be poor or wealthy, wise or foolish, erects his hut. In deter mining the order of these huts, the climate may be said to have been the Vitruvius. In the Society, Tonga, and Marquesas Islands, where space and cool air are a desideratum in a house, the habitations are vast," spacious, and airy; white in New Zealand, where the winters are cold and long, and where the winds and storms frequently rage with irresistible violence, the huts are exceedingly small and low, being entered by a hole, like the den of some wild animal."

In the construction of their dwellings, as in every other art, the Tahitians take the lead of their whole race. Unfortu'nately, although between the hut of a chief and that of a peasant there is a considerable difference, there is here, as elsewhere, a model, from which it is unfashionable to depart. Even in working after the same model, however, it is extremely possible for two men to induce a difference; as Quakers contrive, by the

materials and make of their single-breasted over which you pass, when entering the

coats, to mark the rank of the wearer in the scale of wealth. The houses of the common people in Otaheite are formed with bamboos, one extremity of which is driven deep into the earth, or of branches of trees of equal size. These are placed nearly close to each other, leaving only a small space for the passage of light and air; and a few small poles placed transversely keep the whole together. The roof is formed with small rafters which meet above, and support the species of leaf which serve them instead of thatch. These leaves are first tied to small rods, which are then laid upon the rafters, the lanceolated end of the leaves remaining loose. M. Lesson says the process is be gun at the top; but as, in this case, the point of the leaf would fall under the stem of the next, and thus offer an obstruction to the free descent of the water, this statement is probably a mistake; the more especially as he observes, that roofs formed after the Tahitian method greatly superior to those which, in civilized countries, are made with slate or tiles. When completed, the whole has very much the appearance of the thatched roof of our peasantry.

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These dwellings are, as we have said, of large dimensions, and owing to the manner in which they are built, the air circulates through them freely. Indeed, in the houses of the poor, the rain often intrudes with the wind, and renders the interior extremely uncomfortable. Those who have more wealth, or greater industry, hang mats round the walls to keep out the wind and rain. The elevation of these houses is not great; and a narrow aperture, which looks as if it had been left in the wall by chance, serves for a door. As the Tahitians are a sociable people, they have already discovered the secret that, when a man's house is too large for his own family, he may turn the circumstance to account by taking in lodgers. In this way, probably, it happens that several families are found inhabiting the same dwelling; and, as was anciently the case in France, and perhaps in other countries, the whole family, father, mother, and children, with grand-children, and great-grand-children, when there are any, sleep together in the saine apartment. This common bed-room, which was expressively termed chambre de manège in France, is not very carefully closed against the intrusion of strangers; for M. Lesson remarks, that he has often seen young newly married pairs stretched upon the same mat with their fathers and mothers.

These houses are surrounded by a wattled enclosure, about three feet high,

house, by means of short poles driven into the earth. This enclosure is meant to keep out the pigs and other animals, and prevent their intruding, along with less ceremonious visitors, upon the privacy of newly-married people. Around the hut, on the outside of the wattled enclosure, trees of various kinds are planted, as is the case in Malabar, which furnish the inmates at once with shelter and food. The dwellings of the chiefs, which of course are larger and more spacious, though constructed exteriorly after the same fashion, are divided into a greater number of apartments. These divisions do not, as with us, consist of firm partitions, but of light trellice-work, which rises about halfway the height of the house, the whole of the upper part being left open for the better circulation of the air.

Besides the houses of the chiefs and the people, there is a third sort of structure, which being appropriated to the casual use of any stranger who chooses to spread his mat and sleep there, may be termed caravanserais. These are of vast dimensions, but consist merely of a roof supported by a number of bread-fruit trees arranged as pillars. The villages of the Tahitians, which are chiefly situated on the sea-shore, consist of a considerable number of these huts thinly scattered over a large extent of ground, for as yet they have exhibited no disposition to draw closely together, as men do in those countries where the dread of hostile tribes acts as an instrument of civilization.

The furniture of the Oceanians is particularly scanty. A mat or mattrass for a bed; a net-bag for holding various small articles of utility; hollow bamboos for containing water or oil; a hollow gourd for a smelling-box; cocoa-nuts wrought into vases, cups, and bottles; with a pestle and mortar for bruising the breadfruit, in order to convert it into pastesuch are the whole of their utensils. Where commerce with Europeans has not furnished them with tools, their houses and their pirogues, are still constructed with axes of stone.

Their industry is neither very inventive nor very persevering. Their mats, the most important and curious article of their manufacture, are fabricated by women. Their canoes, formerly constructed with considerable skill and elegance, when the only tools in use were stone hatchets, are now turned out of hand, as a ship-carpenter would say, in a much more slovenly manner since their tools have been of iron. M. Lesson attributes this circumstance to their neglect of naval architecture, consequent upon the great fertility

of their soil. But since their soil is not now more fertile than formerly, it may, perhaps, be more just to attribute it to their being as yet unaccustomed to our better tools, which are only better in hands skilled in the use of them. The emblematical sculpture, which formerly adorned these pirogues, having been closely connected with their Pagan superstitions, have necessarily disappeared since their conversion to Christianity.

Among those islanders who have received from Europeans a knowledge of the use of fire-arms, the ancient instruments of war have necessarily been ne glected. Their long-pointed lances, their deadly-slings, their light javelins of bamboo, have all been laid aside, in favour of the more destructive-musket, which these demi-savages regard as the most sublime invention of civilized man. M. Lesson complains, that no civilized nation has hitherto condescended to collect and preserve those curious memorials of the ancient condition of these islanders, which, he fears, will soon be sought in vain, except in the descriptions of authors: but on this point he may console himself. A collection, which may, perhaps, be regarded as complete, exists in England, partly at the British Museum, partly at the rooms of the Missionary Society, where the curious student of the history of man may contemplate them at his leisure.

One of their most important warlike instruments is that with which they combat ennui, an enemy which appears to be no respecter of persons, but to attack all men alike, whether civilized or savagethis is the finte. In the use of this instrument the Oceanians show a laudable disposition to turn every part of their body to account; for, instead of applying the mouth to the business, which they perhaps regard as being rather hardly tasked in having to receive and transmit to the lower regions all the food they think it convenient to swallow, they call upon the nose to perform this oflice, a lazy member, which neither eats nor drinks, aud, unless it be employed in flute-playing, or in kissing, as among the New Zealanders and others, may be accused of being of little use to a man, notwithstand ing all the hue and cry which Tristram Shandy's father raised over the downfall of his son's. Our prejudices may probably lead us to think slightingly of a noseAute, but M. Lesson assures us that, whatever we may imagine to the contrary, the nose is no bad musician; and that although amongst us it is chiefly employed in that most unmusical art, vulgarly called snuffling, its performances are by no means inelegant.

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The details given by travellers and navigators respecting the manners, customs, and arts of barbarous nations, being the result of actual observations, may in ge neral be relied upon; but when they would penetrate into the souls of these savages, and discover the exact nature of their religious belief, they are so extremely liable to misconception and error, that we must receive their testimony on such subjects with the utmost cantion. Few are competent, even when they possess the language of a foreign people, to penetrate rapidly into the character of their creed; but when we find men pretending to paint the obscure notions of savages, with whom they could only communicate by pantomime, concerning the first cause of things, the future fate of the thinking principle which for a time inhabits the human body, &c, we with difficulty restrain our risi bility.

What appears to be tolerably certain is, that the Oceanians, like all other nations and tribes of men on the face of the earth, believe in the existence of a Supreme Being, who created the world, and still preserves it in existence for the benefit of his creatures. This Spirit, which they endow with beneficent attributes, governs the world only during the day, however, his empire declining with the decline of light; and another spirit, the genius of darkness, of accidents, and of death, comes upon the scene with night. This seems to be that rude mixture of Manichæan and Sabean ideas which obtains among all uncivilized nations in the first stages of their progress, and arises spontaneously out of their contemplation of the natural phenomena daily presented to their eyes. The genius of good, Orimazes, Osiris, or whatever it may be called, is no other than the sun deified; and Ahriman, Typhon, Siva, &c. the genius of darkness, which, by hiding the creation from the eyes of man, appears to blot it out of existence. The worship which barbarians offer to other objects is nothing more than a modification of what is vulgarly called cant or blurney, intended to mollify and and propitiate the fierce and mischievous, and keep the mild and benificent in good humour.

All nations appear to entertain more or less vague notions of a future state. The iuhabitants of the Society Islands believe in a species of Paradise, whither the souls of good men are conveyed upon the wings of their beneficent divinity. The people of the Friendly Islands have imagined a delicious abode, where the souls of the aristocracy enjoy eternal happiness, while those of the vulgar, like the golden-mean people of Tom Paine,

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