August, cied figures, which are deemed a great beauty by the natives.
A fingle man only was obferved, who had a figure pundtured
on his breaft, which appeared to have been performed in the
fame manner as among the nations above enumerated.
The weapons which the men of Tanna conftantly carry
are bows and arrows, clubs, darts and flings. Their young
men are commonly (lingers and archers, but thofe of a
more advanced age make ufe of clubs or darts. The bows
are made of the bed club-wood (cafuarina) very ftrong and
elaftic. They polilh them very highly, and perhaps rub
them with oil from time to time, in order to keep them in
repair. Their arrows are of reed, near four feet long. The
fame black wood, which the Mallicollefe employ for the
point, is like wife made ufe of at Tanna; but the whole
point, which is frequently above a foot long, is jagged or
bearded on two or three fidesf They have likewife arrows
with three points, but thefe are chiefly intended to kill birds
and fifh. Their flings are made of coco-nut fibres, and
worn round the arm or waift; they have a broad part for
the reception of the done, of which the people carry with
them feveral in a leaf. The darts or fpears are the third
fort of miflile weapons at Tanna. They are commonly
made of a thin, knotty, and ill-(haped flick, not exceeding
half an inch in diameter, but nine or ten feet long. At
the thickeft end they are fhaped into a triangular point, fix
or eight inches long, and on each corner there is a row of
eight
27
eight or ten beards or hooks. Thefe darts they throw Au” t
with great accuracy, at a (hort didance, by the help of a
piece of plaited cord, four or five inches long, which has a
knob at one end, and an eye at the other. They hold the
dart between the thumb and fore-finger, having previoufly
placed the latter in the eye of the rope, the remaining
part of which is flung round the dart, above the hand, and
forms a kind of noofe round it, ferving to guide and confine
the dart in its proper direflion, when it is once projected.
I have feen one of thefe darts thrown, at the dif-
tance of ten or twelve yards, into a flake four inches in
diameter, with fuch violence, that the jagged point was-
forced quite through it. The fame thing may be faid o£
their arrows ; at eight or ten yards diftance they (hoot them
very accurately, and with great force ; but as they are cautious
of breaking their bows, they feldom draw them to
the full ftretch, and therefore at twenty-five or thirty yards
their arrows have little effett, and are not to be dreaded.
The clubs are referved for clofe engagement, and every
grown man carries one of them, befides fome of the miflile
weapons. They are of four or five different drapes. The
mod valuable are made of the cafuarina, about four feet
long, ftrait, cylindrical, highly poliflied, and knobbed at
each end. One knob, which they grafp in the hand, is,
round, but the other, with which they flrike, is cut out
into.