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.Monday iy.
to come the next morning. In the mean while they had a
quarrel among themfelves, the man beat the two women
who were fuppofed to be his wives ; the young girl in
return ftruck him, and then began to weep. What the
caufe of this difagreement was, we cannot determine ; but
if the young woman was really the man’s daughter, which
we could never clearly underftand, it fhould feem that
the filial duties are ftrangely confounded among them ; or
which is more probable, that this fecluded family adted in
every refpedt, not according to the cuftoms and regulations
of a civil fociety, but from the impulfes of nature, which
fpeak aloud againft every degree of oppreffion.
In the morning, the man refolved to come on board
with the young woman, but fent the reft of his family a-
fifhing in the canoe. He' walked with her round the cove,
to the place where we had made a ftage or temporary
bridge from the veflel to the fhore. Before they entered
upon this, they were conducted to a place on the hill,
where we kept our fheep and goats, which they feemed
to be much furprifed with, and defired to poflefs ; but as
we forefaw that they muft die for want of proper food
if we left them here, we could not comply with this
requeft. Captain Cook, and my father met them at the
ftage, and this man after faluting them with his nofe
againft theirs, gave each of them a new cloak or piece
of cloth.. made of the flax-plant, curioufly interwoven with
parrot’s
16
parrot’s feathers, and prefented the captain with a piece
of green nephritic ftone, or jadde *, which was formed into
the blade of a hatchet. Before he ftepped on the bridge, he
turned afide, put a piece of a bird’s fkin with white feathers
through the hole in one of his ears, and broke off a fmall
green branch from a neighbouring bufh. With this he
walked on, and flopping when he could juft reach the
fhip’s fides with his hand, ftruck them and the main-
flirouds feveral times with his branch. He then began to
repeat a, kind of fpeech or prayer, which feemed to have
regular cadences, and to be metrically arranged as a
poem ; his eyes were fixed upon the place he had
touched, his Voice was raifed, and his whole behaviour
grave and folemn. The young woman, though at other
times laughing and dancing, now kept clofe to the
man and was ferious all the while he fpoke, which
lafted about two or three minutes ; at the clofe of his
fpeech he ftruck the fhip’s fide again, threw the branch
into the main chains, and came aboard. This manner of
delivering folemn orations, and making peace, is pradtifed
by all the nations which have been feen in the South Sea
before our voyage, as appears from the teftimonies of
various voyagers. Both the man and woman had a fpear
in their hands when they were conduced on the quarterdeck
; there they admired every thing they faw : a few geefe
* See Hawkefworth, vol. II. p. 286. *
V o l . I. Y in