The Bracelets Are Chiefly Worn By The Men;
Some Made Of Sea-Shells, And Others Of Those Of The Cocoa-Nut.
The men also
wear amulets; and those of most value being made of a greenish stone, the
green stone of New Zealand is valued by them for this purpose.
Necklaces
are chiefly used by the women, and made mostly of shells. Ear-rings are
common to both sexes, and those valued most are made of tortoise-shell.
Some of our people having got some at the Friendly Islands, brought it to a
good market here, where it was of more value than any thing we had besides;
from which I conclude that these people catch but few turtle, though I saw
one in the harbour, just as we were getting under sail. I observed that,
towards the latter end of our stay, they began to ask for hatchets, and
large nails, so that it is likely they had found that iron is more
serviceable than stone, bone, or shells, of which all their tools I have
seen are made. Their stone hatchets, at least all those I saw, are not in
the shape of adzes, as at the other islands, but more like an axe. In the
helve, which is pretty thick, is made a hole into which the stone is fixed.
These people, besides the cultivation of ground, have few other arts worth
mentioning. They know how to make a coarse kind of matting, and a coarse
cloth of the bark of a tree, which is used chiefly for belts.
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