A Hot Stone Was Put To The Blood,
Which Was Tied Up In The Leaf, And Put Into The Oven; As Also Bread-Fruit
And Plantains.
Then the whole was covered with green leaves, on which were
laid the remainder of the hot stones; over them were leaves; then any sort
of rubbish they could lay their hands on; finishing the operation by well
covering the whole with earth.
While the victuals were baking, a table was
spread with green leaves on the floor, at one end of a large boat-house. At
the close of two hours and ten minutes, the oven was opened, and all the
victuals taken out. 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.
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