of Lieutenant Hayward, who took with him some of the principal chiefs,
amongst whom was Oedidy, before mentioned by Captain Cook, who went a
voyage with him, but fell into disrepute amongst them, from affirming he
had seen water in a solid form; alluding to the ice. He also took with
him one Brown, an Englishman, that had been left on shore by an American
vessel that had called there, for being troublesome on board: but
otherwise a keen, penetrating, active fellow, who rendered many eminent
services, both in this expedition and the subsequent part of the voyage.
He had lived upwards of twelve months amongst the natives, adopted
perfectly their manners and customs, even to the eating of raw fish, and
dipping his roast pork into a cocoa nut shell of salt water, according to
their manner, as substitute for salt. He likewise avoided all intercourse
and communication with the _Bounty's_ people, by which means necessity
forced him to gain a pretty competent knowledge of their language; and
from natural complexion was much darker than any of the natives.
Captain Edwards had taken every possible means of gaining the friendship
of Tamarrah, the great prince of the upper district, by sending him very
liberal presents, which effectually brought him over to our interest. The
mutineers were now cut off from every hope of resource; the natives were
harrassing them behind, and Mr. Hayward and his party advancing in front;
under cover of night they had taken shelter in a hut in the woods, but
were discovered by Brown, who creeping up to the place where they were
asleep, distinguished them from the natives by feeling their toes; as
people unaccustomed to wear shoes are easily discovered from the spread
of their toes. Next day Mr. Hayward attacked them, but they grounded
their arms without opposition; their hands were bound behind their back
and sent down to the boat under a strong guard.
During the whole business there was only two natives killed; one was shot
in the dusk of the evening, two nights before the people surrendered, by
one of the centinels, who had his musket twice beat out of his hand from
the natives pelting our party with large stones; but the instant he was
shot, some of his friends rushed in and carried off the corpse.
The other native was shot by the mutineers; when attacked by the natives
they took to a river; a stone being thrown by one of the natives at the
wife, or woman, of one of the mutineers, enraged him so much, that he
immediately shot the offender.
A prison was built for their accommodation on the quarter deck, that they
might be secure, and apart from our ship's company; and that it might
have every advantage of a free circulation of air, which rendered it the
most desirable place in the ship. Orders were likewise given that they
should be victualled, in every respect in the same as the ship's company,
both in meat, liquor, and all the extra indulgencies with which we were
so liberally supplied, notwithstanding the established laws of the
service, which restricts prisoners to two-thirds allowance: but Captain
Edwards very humanely commiserated with their unhappy and inevitable
length of confinement. Oripai, the king's brother, a discerning,
sensible, and intelligent chief, discovered a conspiracy amongst the
natives on shore to cut our cables should it come to blow hard from the
sea. This was more to be dreaded, as many of the prisoners were married
to the most respectable chiefs' daughters in the district opposite to
where we lay at anchor; in particular one, who took the name of Stewart,
a man of great possession in landed property, near Matavy Bay: a
gentleman of that name belonging to the _Bounty_ having married his
daughter, and he, as his friend and father-in law, agreeable to their
custom, took his name.
Ottoo the king, his two brothers, and all the principal chiefs, appeared
extremely anxious for our safety; and after the prisoners were on board,
kept watch during the night; were always keeping a sharp look out upon
our cables, and continually spurring the centinels to be careful in their
duty. The prisoners' wives visited the ship daily and brought their
children, who were permitted to be carried to their unhappy fathers. To
see the poor captives in irons, weeping over their tender offspring, was
too moving a scene for any feeling heart. Their wives brought them ample
supplies of every delicacy that the country afforded while we lay there,
and behaved with the greatest fidelity and affection to them.
Next day the king, his two queens, and retinue, came on board to pay us a
formal visit, preceded by a band of music. The ladies had about sixty or
seventy yards of Otaheitee cloth wrapt round them, and were so bulky and
unwieldy with it, they were obliged to be hoisted on board like horn
cattle: hogs, cocoa-nuts, bananas, a rich sort of peach, and a variety of
ready dressed puddings and victuals, composed their present to the
Captain.
As soon as they were on board, the Captain debarassoit the ladies, by
rolling their linen round his middle; an indispensable ceremony here in
receiving a present of cloth: and Medua, wife to Oripai, the king's
brother, took a great liking to the Captain's laced coat, which he
immediately put on her with much gallantry; and that beautiful princess
seemed much elated with her new finery. I cannot ommit a circumstance of
this lady's attachment to dress. There was a custom which had prevailed
for a long time, to present the god with all red feathers that could be
procured; but thinking she would become red feathers full as well as his
godship, immediately employed all her domestics making them up into fly
flaps, and other personal ornaments, to prevent the altar making a
monopoly of all the good things, in this, as well as in other countries.
A grand Hæva was next day ordered for our entertainment ashore, on Point
Venus, and on our landing we were preceded by a band of music, and led to
where the king and his levee were in waiting to receive us. The course
was soon cleared by the chiefs, and the entertainment began by two men,
who vied with each other in filthy lascivious attitudes, and frightful
distortions of their mouths. These having performed their part, two
ladies, pretty fancifully dressed, as described in Captain Cook's
Voyages, were introduced after a little ceremony. Something resembling a
turkey-cock's tail, and stuck on their rumps in a fan kind of fashion,
about five feet in diameter, had a very good effect while the ladies kept
their faces to us; but when in a bending attitude, they presented their
rumps, to shew the wonderful agility of their loins; the effect is better
conceived than described. After half an hour's hard exercise, the dear
creatures had remüé themselves into a perfect fureur, and the piece
concluded by the ladies exposing that which is better felt than seen;
and, in that state of nature, walked from the bottom of the theatre to
the top where we were sitting on the grass, till they approached just by
us, and then we complimented them in bowing, with all the honours of war.
These accomplishments are so much prized amongst them that girls come
from the interior parts of the country to the court residence, for
improvement in the Hæva, just as country gentlemen send their daughters
to London boarding-schools.
This may well be called the Cytheria of the southern hemisphere, not only
from the beauty and elegance of the women, but their being so deeply
versed in, and so passionately fond of the Eleusinian mysteries; and what
poetic fiction has painted of Eden, or Arcadia, is here realized, where
the earth without tillage produces both food and cloathing, the trees
loaded with the richest of fruit, the carpet of nature spread with the
most odoriferous flowers, and the fair ones ever willing to fill your
arms with love.
It affords a happy instance of contradicting an opinion propagated by
philosophers of a less bountiful soil, who maintain that every virtuous
or charitable act a man commits, is from selfish and interrested views.
Here human nature appears in more amiable colours, and the soul of man,
free from the gripping hand of want, acts with a liberality and bounty
that does honour to his God.
A native of this country divides every thing in common with his friend,
and the extent of the word friend, by them, is only bounded by the
universe, and was he reduced to his last morsel of bread, he cheerfully
halves it with him; the next that comes has the same claim, if he wants
it, and so in succession to the last mouthful he has. Rank makes no
distinction in hospitality; for the king and beggar relieve each other in
common.
The English are allowed by the rest of the world, and I believe with some
degree of justice, to be a generous, charitable people; but the
Otaheiteans could not help bestowing the most contemptuous word in their
language upon us, which is, Peery Peery, or Stingy.
In becoming the Tyo, or friend of a man, it is expected you pay him a
compliment, by cherishing his wife; but, being ignorant of that ceremony,
I very innocently gave high offence to Matuara, the king of York Island,
to whom I was introduced as his friend: a shyness took place on the side
of his Majesty, from my neglect to his wife; but, through the medium of
Brown the interpreter, he put me in mind of my duty, and on my promising
my endeavours, matters were for that time made up. It was to me, however,
a very serious inauguration: I was, in the first place, not a young man,
and had been on shore a whole week; the lady was a woman of rank, being
sister to Ottoo, the king of Otaheitee, and had in her youth been
beautiful, and named Peggy Ottoo. She is the right hand dancing figure so
elegantly delineated in Cook's Voyages. But Peggy had seen much service,
and bore away many honourable scars in the fields of Venus. However, his
Majesty's service must be done, and Matuara and I were again friends. He
was a domesticated man, and passionately fond of his wife and children;
but now became pensive and melancholy, dreading the child should be
Piebald; though the lady was six months advanced in her pregnancy before
we came to the island.
The force of friendship amongst those good creatures, will be more fully
understood from the following circumstance: Churchhill, the principal
ringleader of the mutineers, on his landing, became the Tyo, or friend,
of a great chief in the upper districts. Some time after the chief
happening to die without issue, his title and estate, agreeable to their
law from Tyoship, devolved on Churchhill, who having some dispute with
one Thomson of the _Bounty_, was shot by him. The natives immediately
rose, and revenged the death of Churchhill their chief, by killing
Thomson, whose skull was afterwards shown to us, which bore evident marks
of fracture.
Oedidy, although perfectly devoted to our interest, on being appointed
one of the guides in the expedition against the mutineers, expressed
great horror at the act he was going to commit, in betraying his friend,
being Tyo to one of them.
They are much less addicted to thieving than when Capt. Cook visited
them; and when things were stolen, by applying to the magistrate of the
district, the goods were immediately returned; for, like every other well
regulated police, the thief and justice were of one gang.
Sometimes we slightly punished the offenders, by cutting off their hair.
A beautiful young creature, who lived at the Observatory with one of our
young gentlemen, slipped out of bed from him in the night, and stole all
his linen. She was punished for the theft, by shaving one of her
eye-brows, and half of the hair off her head. She immediately run into
the woods, and used to come once or twice a day to the tent, to request
looking at herself in the glass; but the grotesque figure she cut, with
one side entirely bald, made her shriek out, and run into the woods to
shun society.
With respect to agriculture, in a soil where nature has done so much,
little is left to human industry; but had there been occasion for it,
abilities would not be wanting. It is much to be lamented, that the
endeavours of the philanthropic Sir Joseph Banks were frustrated, by
their razing of every thing which he took so much pains to rear amongst
them, a few shaddocks excepted. Tobacco and cotton have escaped their
ravage; and they are much mortified that they cannot eradicate it from
their grounds: but were a handloom on a simple construction, as used by
the natives of Java, introduced amongst them, they could soon turn their
cotton to good account. An instance of their ingenuity and imitative
powers in matting, was a thing perfectly unknown amongst them till
Captain Cook introduced it from Anamooka, one of the Friendly Isles: but
in that branch of manufacture they now far surpass their original. They
have likewise abundance of fine sugarcanes, growing spontaneously all
over the island, from which rum and sugar might be extracted. Indeed an
attempt was made by Coleman, the armourer of the _Bounty_, who made a
still, and succeeded; but, dreading the effects of intoxication, both
amongst themselves and the natives, very wisely put an end to his labours
by breaking the still.
Captain Bligh has likewise planted Indian corn, from which much may be
expected. On our landing, as soon as public business of more importance
would permit, our gentlemen were indefatigable in laying out a piece of
garden ground, and ditching it round. Lemons, oranges, limes,
pine-apples, plants of the coffee tree, with all the lesser class of
things, as onions, lettuces, peas, cabbages, and every thing necessary
for culinary purposes, were planted.
In order that they might not meet the same fate of the things planted by
Sir Joseph Banks, Captain Edwards made use of every stratagem to make the
chiefs fond of the oranges and limes, by dipping them in sugar, to cover
the acid before it be presented to them to eat. Messrs. Corner and
Hayward were equally zealous in using the most persuasive arguments with
the chiefs to take care of our garden, and rear and propagate the plants
when we were gone; to all which they lent a deaf ear, and treated the
subject with much levity, saying, they might be very good to us, but that
they were already plentifully supplied with every thing they wished or
wanted, and had not occasion for more. But on the Lieutenant's
representing, that if, on our return, they could supply us with plenty of
such articles as we left with them, they in exchange would receive
hatchets, knives, and red cloth, they seemed more favourably inclined to
our project; and I have no doubt but that some after navigators will reap
the benefit of their industry.
The Bread-fruit, although the most delicate and nourishing food upon
earth, is, with people like them, liable to inconveniencies; for in such
a group or Archipelago of islands, whose inhabitants are in such various
gradations of refinement, from the gentle and polished Otaheitean, to the
savage and cannibal Feegee, a war amongst them is often attended with
devastation as well as famine. By cutting round the bark of the
Bread-fruit tree, a whole country may be laid waste for four or five
years, young trees not bearing in less time. Crops, such as Indian corn,
English wheat and peas, that have been left amongst them, can in time of
war be stored in granaries on the top of their almost inaccessible
mountains.
While speaking of the Bread-fruit tree, I can exemplify my subject from
what happened to an island contiguous to Otaheite, whose coast abounded
with fine fish; and the Otaheitans, being themselves too lazy to catch
them, destroyed all the Bread-fruit trees on this little island; by which
act of policy, they are obliged to send over boats with fish regularly to
market, to be supplied with bread in barter from Otaheite. To this island
they likewise send their wives, thinking they become fair by living on
fish, and low diet. They also send boys for the same reason, whom they
keep for abominable purposes.
As to the religion of this country, it is difficult for me to define it.
Their tenets, although equally ignorant of heathen mythology or
theological intricacies, seem to partake of both; and, like other nations
in the early ages of society, are rendered subservient to political
purposes, as by the machinery of deification the person of the king is
sacred and inviolable. Notwithstanding the king be a broad shouldered
strapping fellow, three sturdy stallions of _cecisbeos_, or lords in
waiting, are kept for the particular amusement of the queen, when his
majesty is in his cups. Yet the royal issue is always declared to be
sprung from the immortal Gods; and the heir-apparent, during his
minority, is put under the tuition of the high priest. Their God is
supposed to be omnipresent, and is worshipped in spirit, idolatry not
being known amongst them. The sacred mysteries are only known to the
priests or augurs, the king, princes, and great chiefs, the common people
only serving as victims, or to fill up the pageantry of a religious
procession. One of our gentlemen expressing a wish to the high priest,
of carrying from amongst them that God whose altars craved so much human
blood, he, like a true priest, had his subterfuge ready, by saying, there
were more of the same family in the other islands, from whence they could
easily be supplied. On all great occasions, each district sends a male
victim; and the island containing forty districts, it may be presumed the
mortality is great. Between the sacrifices and the ravages of war, a
preponderating number of females must have taken place; to counteract
which, a law passed, that every other female child should be put to death
at birth; and the husband always officiating as acoucheur to his wife,
the child is destroyed as soon as the sex is discovered.
The absurdity of this inhuman law is now pretty evident. Women are become
more scarce, and set a higher value on their charms, which occasions many
desperate battles amongst them. Some with fractured skulls were sent on
board of us, which had been got in amorous affrays of that kind.
It may naturally be supposed, that people of such gentle natures make no
conspicuous figure in the theatre of war.
Their war-canoes are very large, on which a platform is placed, capable
of containing from a hundred and fifty to two hundred men. But their
taste in decorating the prow of their men of war, plainly indicates they
are more versed in the fields of Venus than Mars, every man of war having
a figure head of the god Priapus, with a preposterous insignia of his
order; the sight of which never fails to excite great glee and good
humour amongst the ladies.
It is customary with those nations at war, that the treaty of peace be
confirmed by the conquerors sending a certain number of their women to
cohabit with the nation that is vanquished, in order to conciliate their
affection by a bond more lasting than wax and parchment. It was the
unhappy lot of Otaheite to be overcome by a nation whose women were too
masculine for them; they being accustomed to the amorous dalliance of
their own beautiful females, were averse to familiar intercourse with
strangers. The ladies returned with all the rage of disappointed women,
and the war was renewed with all its horrors.
They are well acquainted with the bow and arrow, but use it as an
amusement. The only missive weapons they use are the sling and spear.
They have now amongst them about twenty stand of arms, and two hundred
rounds of powder and ball. They can take a musket to pieces, and put it
up again; are good marksmen, take proper care of their arms and
ammunition; and are highly sensible of the superior advantage it gives
them over the neighbouring nations.
In the preparing and printing their cloth, the women display a great
share of ingenuity and good taste. Many of their figures were exactly the
patterns which prevailed, as fashionable, when we left England, both
striped and figured. They print their figured cloth by dipping the leaves
in dye-stuffs of different colours, placing them as their fancy directs.
Their cloth is of different texture of fineness, from a stuff of the same
nature in quality as the slightest India paper, to a kind as durable as
some of our cottons; but they will not bear water, and of course become
troublesome and expensive. They are generally made up in bales, running
about two yards broad, and twenty or thirty yards long. We had some
thousands of yards of it sent on board as presents.
Their sumptuary laws, at first sight, may appear severe towards the fair
sex, who are not permitted to eat butchermeat, nor to eat at all, in the
presence of their husbands. It certainly does not convey the most
delicate ideas, to a mind impressed with much sensibility, to see a fine
woman devouring a piece of beef; and those voluptuaries, who may be said
to exist only by their women, would naturally endeavour to remove the
possibility of presupposing a disgusting idea in that object in which all
their happiness centres.
Every woman, the queen and royal family excepted, on the approach of the
king, is denuded down to the waist, and continues so whilst his majesty
is in sight. Should the king enter a woman's house, it is immediately
pulled down. The king is never permitted to help himself with meat or
drink, which makes him a very troublesome visitor, as he is never quiet
whilst a bottle is in sight till he has had the last drop of it.
Their houses are well adapted to the temperate climate they inhabit, and
generally consist of three chambers, the interior one of which the chief
retires to, after he has drank his cava. A profound silence is observed
during his repose; for should they be suddenly awaked, it produces
violent vomiting, and a train of uneasy sensations; but, otherwise, if
undisturbed, it proves a safe anodyne, creates amorous dreams, and a
powerful excitement to venery. In the adjoining chamber, his fair spouse
waits, with eager expectation, to avail herself of the happy moment when
her lord should awake, which is by slow degrees; and he is roused from
Elysium, by her gentle offices, in tenderly embracing every part of his
body, until his ideal scenes of bliss are realised; and when fully sated
with the luscious banquet, they retire to the bath, to gather fresh
vigour for a renewal of similar joys. In this mazy round of chaste
dissipation, the hours glide gently on, and the evening is spent in
dancing to the music of Pan's pipes, the flute, and hæva drum. They then
go to the bath again, and the festivity of the evening is concluded with
a repast of fruit, and young cocoanut milk. The whole village
indiscriminately join the feast; and the demon of rank and precedence,
with their appendages malevolence and envy, has never yet disturbed their
happy board.
Happy would it have been for those people had they never been visited by
Europeans; for, to our shame be it spoken, disease and gunpowder is all
the benefit they have ever received from us, in return for their
hospitality and kindness. The ravages of the venereal disease is evident,
from the mutilated objects so frequent amongst them, where death has not
thrown a charitable veil over their misery, by putting a period to their
existence.
A disease of the consumptive kind has of late made great havoc amongst
them; this they call the British disease, as they have only had it since
their intercourse with the English.
In this complaint they are avoided by society, from a supposition of its
being contagious; and in every old out-house, you will find miserable
objects, for want of medical assistance, abandoned to their wretched
fate. From what we could learn, it generally terminates fatally in ten or
twelve months; but I am led to believe, that in many cases it originates
from the venereal disease.[117-1]
The voice of humanity honour, and justice, calls upon us as a nation to
remedy those evils, by sending some intelligent surgeon to live amongst
them. They at present pant for the pruning-hand of civilization and the
arts; love and adore us as beings of a superior nature, but gently
upbraid us with having left them in the same abject state they were at
first discovered.