1787. What little account I can give thee of their plantations thou
Septem er. a]reac]y and j ha(j no opportunity of feeing any other
cultivation than taro j but every thing elfe, I doubt not, is managed
with equal care and attention.
Their houfes greatly refemble an hay-Hack in fhape, and are
neatly thatched with flags, or rallies’; the door place is fo very low
that you are almofl obliged to enter on all fours. They have no
better contrivance for a door than a few temporary boards. The
infide of their dwellings are kept neat and clean ; a coarfe mat is
fpread on the floor; and as they have no feparate apartments, that
part of the room appropriated for repofe is rather elevated, and
covered with mats of a finer fort. The houfhold utenfils are
placed on a wooden bench, and confift of gourds, and wooden
bowls and difhes, which in general conftitute the whole of their
furniture. Thofe who are poffefled of hogs or fowls, keep them
in fmall out-houfes appropriated for that purpofe.
The method univerfally praftifed to drefs their victuals is
baking, which is done in the following maner: a hole is dug in
the ground fufficiently deep to anfwer the purpofe of an oven, at
the bottom of which a number of hot Hones are laid; thefe being
covered with leaves, whatever they want drefied is laid on them ;
more leaves' are now laid on, and another layer of hot Hones being
added, the oven is covered. If a hog is baked, the belly is always
filled with hot Hones. Cuflom has rendered this mode of dreffing
victuals fo very ,familiar, that they can tell the exact time when
any thing is fufficiently done; and I muH own that in baking taro
or yams, they far excelled our people: they alfo drefs the young
tops of taro fo as to be an excellent fubflitute for greens, though
we never could boil them fo as to eat palatably.
The
The better forts of food, fuch as hogs and fowls, are confined
entirely to the Arees; but baked dog, is reckoned a peculiar delicacy.
The Towtows, and the women in general, live on fifli and
vegetables. A kind of pudding made of taro confiitutes a principal
part of their food. The fifh moft efieemed is dolphin, and they
have an excellent method of curing them, fo as to keep good for
any length of time. Why the women fhould be tabooed from
flefh I never could learn; but it cannot furely proceed from fcarci-
t y ; and the Aree women are fometimes indulged with it.
The knives ufed in killing and dreffing hogs are made of fhark s
teeth, and fo contrived as to be ufed in this bufinefs with equal
dexterity and difpatch.
The canoes are not only finifhed with neatnefs and ingenuity,
but at the fame time are lading proofs of perfeverance and in-
duHry. They are made of a fingle tree, and are from twelve feet
to forty or fifty feet long. The hollowing thefe trees, and bringing
each end to a proper point with their rude unfalhioned tools, muH
be a work of time and unremitting attention: they are in general
about an inch thick, and heightened with additional boards neatly
fitted round the fides. The fingle canoes are fleadied by an outrigger,
and the double ones are held together by femi-circular
poles, firmly lathed to each part of the canoe ; over thele, and
parallel with the canoe, is a kind of platform, which ferves to
carry hogs, vegetables, or. any thing they want to nonvey from
one place to another, and at the fame time is a convenient feat
for the principal perfons of both fixes. whilH the Towtows, who
M m 2 paddle,-