The first process is, to make a large platform of rough stones, covered with gravel, extending some twenty feet on every side beyond the walls of the house. In the centre are planted three posts, standing about twenty-five feet out of the ground. Upon these central posts are supported the rafters of the roof, one end of each rafter being fixed to them, and the other end to the tops of short posts about four feet high, which form, or rather which do duty for, the walls of the house. Real walls there are none, but at night the space between the posts is closed by blinds made of plaited cocoa-nut leaves. The whole framework of the roof is made in several sections, so that it can be removed.
The thatch is made of the leaves of the sugar-cane, nailed by the women to reeds with spikes made of the ribs of the cocoa-nut leaves. About four thousand leaves are required for thatching a house, and they are lashed carefully with cocoa-nut fibre.
The floor of the house is strewn with very fine gravel and covered with mats. There are no separate chambers, but at night the house is divided into a number of sleeping places by means of the mosquito curtains which are attached to the central post, and let down when required. It is a point of etiquette that all guests should be supplied with clean mats. The pillow used in Samoa is like that of Fiji, and is nothing more than a stick supported on a foot at each end.
CHAPTER CV.
HERVEY AND KINGSMILL ISLANDS.
APPEARANCE—WEAPONS—GOVERNMENT.
POSITION OF THE HERVEY ISLANDS — FIERCE AND TREACHEROUS NATURE OF THE INHABITANTS — THE CHIEF MOUROOA, AND HIS VISIT TO THE SHIP — SKILL IN CARVING — THEIR BEAUTIFUL PADDLES AND CANOES — THE MANGAIAN ADZE: ITS CARVED HANDLE AND STONE HEAD — THE MANY-BARBED SPEAR — THE CLUB AND SLING — THE FOUR RANKS IN BATTLE — FEROCITY OF THE WOMEN — FEUDS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES — A MANGAIAN HOUSE — FOOD — PROCURING AND COOKING IT — A RAT HUNT — IDOLS OF THE MANGAIANS — THE KINGSMILL ISLANDERS — LOCALITY AND GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE KINGSMILL ISLANDS — APPEARANCE OF THE NATIVES — ARCHITECTURE — DRESS AND TATTOOING — WARLIKE NATURE — THE TERRIBLE WEAPONS OF THESE ISLANDS — THE SWORD AND SPEAR — MODE OF GOVERNMENT — BURIAL OF A DEAD CHIEF.
Eastward of Samoa, and rather southward, lie the Hervey, or Cook’s Islands. The group includes seven islands, the principal of which is Rarotonga, an island between thirty and forty miles in circumference. This island is remarkable for the lofty mountains of the interior, and round it extends a large reef of coral. Some of the islands are entirely coral, and all of them are surrounded by the dangerous coral reefs, at which the coral “insects” are still working.
In general appearance the people bear much resemblance to the Samoans, but seem to be of a more warlike and ferocious character. Indeed, so quarrelsome and bloodthirsty are the natives of this group, that when Mr. Williams visited Hervey’s Island he found that only sixty of the population survived, and a few years later they were reduced to five men, three women, and some children, and these were on the point of fighting among themselves, in order to ascertain which should be king.
One of the principal islands of this group, namely, Mangaia, was discovered by Captain Cook in March 1777. The natives were very unwilling to come on board the vessel, but at last two men put off in a canoe, their curiosity overcoming their terror. The name of one of them was Mourooa, and he was distinguishable by a large scar on his forehead, the result of a wound received in battle.
“Mourooa,” writes Captain Cook, “was lusty and well-made, but not very tall. His features were agreeable, and his disposition seemingly no less so, for he made several droll gesticulations, which indicated both good nature and a share of humor. He also made others which seemed of a serious kind, and repeated some words with a devout air before he ventured to lay hold of the rope at the ship’s stern; which was probably to recommend himself to the protection of some divinity.
“His color was nearly of the same cast common to the most southern Europeans. The other man was not so handsome. Both of them had strong, straight hair, of a jet color, tied together on the crown of the head with a bit of cloth. They wore such girdles as we perceived about those on shore, and we found they wore a substance made from the Morus papyrifera, in the same manner as at the other islands of this ocean. It was glazed, like the sort used by the natives of the Friendly Islands, but the cloth on their heads was white, like that which is found at Otaheite.