Whenever We Made
This Enquiry, They Always Gave Us The Name Of Some District Or Place, Which
We Pointed To; And, As Before Observed, I Got The Names Of Several, With
The Name Of The King Or Chief Of Each.
Hence I conclude, that the country
is divided into several districts, each governed by a chief; but we know
nothing of the extent of his power.
Balade was the name of the district we
were at, and Tea Booma the chief. He lived on the other side of the ridge
of hills, so that we had but little of his company, and therefore could not
see much of his power. Tea seems a title prefixed to the names of
all, or most, of their chiefs or great men. My friend honoured me by
calling me Tea Cook.
They deposit their dead in the ground. I saw none of their burying-places,
but several of the gentlemen did. In one, they were informed, lay the
remains of a chief who was slain in battle; and his grave, which bore some
resemblance to a large mole-hill, was decorated with spears, darts,
paddles, &c. all stuck upright in the ground round about it. The canoes,
which these people use, are somewhat like those of the Friendly Isles; but
the most heavy clumsy vessels I ever saw. They are what I call double
canoes, made out of two large trees, hollowed out, having a raised gunnel,
about two inches high, and closed at each end with a kind of bulk-head of
the same height; so that the whole is like a long square trough, about
three feet shorter than the body of the canoe; that is, a foot and a half
at each end.
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