Those Of The Natives Who Dined With Us, Sat Down By
Themselves, At One End Of The Table, And We At The Other.
The hog was
placed before us, and the fat and blood before them, on which they chiefly
dined, and said it was Mamity, very good victuals; and we not only
said, but thought, the same of the pork.
The hog weighed about fifty
pounds. Some parts about the ribs I thought rather overdone, but the more
fleshy parts were excellent; and the skin, which by the way of our dressing
can hardly be eaten, had, by this method, a taste and flavour superior to
any thing I ever met with of the kind. I have now only to add, that during
the whole of the various operations, they exhibited a cleanliness well
worthy of imitation. I have been the more particular in this account,
because I do not remember that any of us had seen the whole process before;
nor is it well described in the narrative of my former voyage.
While dinner was preparing, I took a view of this Whenooa of
Oedidee. It was a small, but a pleasant spot; and the houses were so
disposed as to form a very pretty village, which is very rarely the case at
these isles, Soon after we had dined, we set out for the ship, with the
other pig, and a few races of plantains, which proved to be the sum total
of our great expectations.
In our return to the ship, we put ashore at a place where, in the corner of
a house, we saw four wooden images, each two feet long, standing on a
shelf, having a piece of cloth round their middle, and a kind of turban on
their heads, in which were stuck long feathers of cocks. A person in the
house told us they were Eatua no te Toutou, gods of the servants or
slaves. I doubt if this be sufficient to conclude that they pay them divine
worship, and that the servants or slaves are not allowed the same gods as
men of more elevated rank; I never heard that Tupia made any such
distinction, or that they worshipped any visible thing whatever. Besides,
these were the first wooden gods we had seen in any of the isles; and all
the authority we had for their being such, was the bare word of perhaps a
superstitious person, and whom, too, we were liable to misunderstand. It
must be allowed that the people of this isle are in general more
superstitious than at Otaheite. At the first visit I made the chief after
our arrival, he desired I would not suffer any of my people to shoot herons
and wood-peckers; birds as sacred with them as robin-red-breasts, swallows,
&c. are with many old women in England. Tupia, who was a priest, and well
acquainted with their religion, customs, traditions, &c. paid little or no
regard to these birds. I mention this, because some amongst us were of
opinion that these birds are their Eatuas, or gods. We indeed fell
into this opinion when I was here in 1769, and into some others still more
absurd, which we had undoubtedly adopted, if Tupia had not undeceived us. A
man of his knowledge and understanding we have not since met with, and
consequently have added nothing to his account of their religion but
superstitious notions.[2]
On the 31st, the people knowing that we should sail soon, began to bring
more fruit on board than usual. Among those who came was a young man who
measured six feet four inches and six-tenths; and his sister, younger, than
him, measured five feet ten inches and a half. A brisk trade for hogs and
fruit continued on the 1st of June. On the 2d, in the afternoon, we got
intelligence that, three days before, two ships had arrived at Huaheine.
The same report said, the one was commanded by Mr Banks, and the other by
Captain Furneaux. The man who brought the account said, he was made drunk
on board one of them, and described the persons of Mr Banks and Captain
Furneaux so well, that I had not the least doubt of the truth, and began to
consider about sending a boat over that very evening with orders to Captain
Furneaux, when a man, a friend of Mr Forster, happened to come on board and
denied the whole, saying it was wa warre, a lie. The man from whom
we had the intelligence was now gone, so that we could not confront them,
and there were none else present who knew any thing about it but by report;
so that I laid aside sending over a boat till I should be better informed.
This evening we entertained the people with fire-works, on one of the
little isles near the entrance of the harbour.
I had fixed on the next day for sailing, but the intelligence from Huaheine
put a stop to it. The chief had promised to bring the man on board who
first brought the account; but he was either not to be found, or would not
appear. In the morning, the people were divided in their opinions; but in
the afternoon, all said it was a false report. I had sent Mr Clerke, in the
morning, to the farthest part of the island, to make enquiries there; he
returned without learning any thing satisfactory. In short, the report
appeared now too ill founded to authorize me to send a boat over, or to
wait any longer here; and therefore, early in the morning of the 4th, I got
every thing in readiness to sail. Oree the chief, and his whole family,
came on board, to take their last farewell, accompanied by Oo-oo-rou, the
Earee di hi, and Boba, the Earee of Otaha, and several of
their friends. None of them came empty; but Oo-oo-rou brought a pretty
large present, this being his first and only visit.
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