The house is indeed principally used as a dormitory; for, except it rains, they eat in the open air, under the shade of the next tree. The clothes that they wear in the day serve them for covering in the night: the floor is the common bed of the whole household, and is not divided by any partition. The master of the house and his wife sleep in the middle, next to them the married people, next to them the unmarried women, and next to them, at a little distance, the unmarried men: the servants, or Toutous, as they are called, sleep in the open air, except it rains, and in that case they come just within the shade.
There are, however, houses of another kind belonging to the chiefs, in which there is some degree of privacy. These are much smaller, and so constructed as to be carried about in their canoes from place to place, and set up occasionally like a tent: they are enclosed on the sides with cocoa-nut leaves, but not so close as to exclude the air, and the chief and his wife sleep in them alone.
There are houses also of a much larger size, not built either for the accommodation of a single chief, or a single family; but as common receptacles for all the people of a district. Some of them are two hundred feet long, thirty broad, and, under the ridge, twenty feet high: these are built and maintained at the common expence of the district, for the accommodation of which they are intended; and have on one side of them a large area, inclosed with low pallisadoes.
These houses, like those of separate families, have no walls. Privacy, indeed, is little wanted among people who have not even the idea of indecency, and who gratify every appetite and passion before witnesses, with no more sense of impropriety than we feel when we satisfy our hunger at a social board with our family or friends. Those who have no idea of indecency with respect to actions, can have none with respect to words; it is, therefore, scarcely necessary to observe, that, in the conversation of these people, that which is the principal source of their pleasure is always the principal topic; and that every thing is mentioned without any restraint or emotion, and in the most direct terms, by both sexes.
Of the food eaten here the greater part is vegetable. Here are no tame animals except hogs, dogs, and poultry, as I have observed before, and these are by no means plenty. When a chief kills a hog, it is almost equally divided among his dependants; and, as they are very numerous, the share of each individual at these feasts, which are not frequent, must necessarily be small. Dogs and fowls fall somewhat more frequently to the share of the common people. I cannot much commend the flavour of their fowls; but we all agreed, that a South-sea dog was little inferior to an English lamb: their excellence is probably owing to their being kept up, and fed wholly upon vegetables. The sea affords them a great variety of fish. The smaller fish, when they catch any, are generally eaten raw, as we eat oysters; and nothing that the sea produces comes amiss to them: they are fond of lobsters, crabs, and other shell-fish, which are found upon the coast; and they will eat not only sea-insects, but what the seamen call Blubbers, though some of them are so tough, that they are obliged to suffer them to become putrid before they can be chewed. Of the many vegetables that have been mentioned already as serving them for food, the principal is the bread-fruit, to procure which costs them no trouble or labour but climbing a tree: the tree which produces it does not indeed shoot up spontaneously: but if a man plants ten of them in his lifetime, which he may do in about an hour, he will as completely fulfil his duty to his own and future generations as the natives of our less temperate climate can do by ploughing in the cold of winter, and reaping in the summer’s heat, as often as these seasons return; even if, after he has procured bread for his present household, he should convert a surplus into money, and lay it up for his children.
It is true, indeed, that the bread-fruit is not always in season; but cocoa-nuts, bananas, plantains, and a great variety of other fruits, supply the deficiency.
It may well be supposed, that cookery is but little studied by these people as an art; and, indeed, they have but two ways of applying fire to dress their food, broiling and baking; the operation of broiling is so simple that it requires no description, and their baking has been described already, (page [154].) in the account of an entertainment prepared for us by Tupia. Hogs, and large fish, are extremely well dressed in the same manner; and, in our opinion, were more juicy and more equally done than by any art of cookery now practised in Europe. Bread-fruit is also cooked in an oven of the same kind, which renders it soft, and something like a boiled potatoe; not quite so farinaceous as a good one, but more so than those of the middling sort.
Of the bread-fruit they also make three dishes, by putting either water or the milk of the cocoa-nut to it, then beating it to a paste with a stone pestle, and afterwards mixing it with ripe plantains, bananas, or the sour paste which they call Mahie.
The mahie, which has been mentioned as a succedaneum for ripe bread-fruit, before the season for gathering a fresh crop comes on, is thus made:
The fruit is gathered just before it is perfectly ripe, and being laid in heaps, is closely covered with leaves; in this state it undergoes a fermentation, and becomes disagreeably sweet: the core is then taken out entire, which is done by gently pulling the stalk, and the rest of the fruit is thrown into a hole which is dug for that purpose, generally in the houses, and neatly lined in the bottom and sides with grass; the whole is then covered with leaves, and heavy stones laid upon them: in this state it undergoes a second fermentation, and becomes sour, after which it will suffer no change for many months: it is taken out of the hole as it is wanted for use, and being made into balls, it is wrapped up in leaves and baked; after it is dressed, it will keep five or six weeks. It is eaten both cold and hot, and the natives seldom make a meal without it, though to us the taste was as disagreeable as that of a pickled olive generally is the first time it is eaten.