These people bore their testimony that the love of finery is an universal passion, for their ornaments were very numerous. Some of the better sort wore chains of gold round their necks, but they were made of plaited wire, and consequently were light and of little value; others had rings, which were so much worn, that they seemed to have descended through many generations; and one person had a silver-headed cane, marked with a kind of cypher, consisting of the Roman letters V, O, C, and therefore probably a present from the Dutch East India Company, whose mark it is: they have also ornaments made of beads, which some wear round their necks as a solitaire, and others, as bracelets, upon their wrists: these are common to both sexes, but the women have besides strings or girdles of beads, which they wear round their waists, and which serve to keep up their petticoat. Both sexes had their ears bored, nor was there a single exception that fell under our notice, yet we never saw an ornament in any of them; we never indeed saw either man or woman in any thing but what appeared to be their ordinary dress, except the king and his minister, who in general wore a kind of night-gown of coarse chintz, and one of whom once received us in a black robe, which appeared to be made of what is called prince’s stuff. We saw some boys, about twelve or fourteen years old, who had spiral circles of thick brass wire passed three or four times round their arms, above the elbow, and some men wore rings of ivory, two inches in breadth, and above an inch in thickness, upon the same part of the arm: these, we were told, were the sons of the rajas, or chiefs, who wore those cumbrous ornaments as badges of their high birth.
Almost all the men had their names traced upon their arms in indelible characters of a black colour, and the women had a square ornament of flourished lines, impressed in the same manner, just under the bend of the elbow. We were struck with the similitude between these marks, and those made by tattowing in the South Sea islands, and upon inquiring into its origin, we learnt that it had been practised by the natives long before any Europeans came among them; and that in the neighbouring islands, the inhabitants were marked with circles upon their necks and breasts. The universality of this practice, which prevails among savages in all parts of the world, from the remotest limits of North America, to the islands in the South Seas, and which probably differs but little from the method of staining the body that was in use among the antient inhabitants of Britain, is a curious subject of speculation.[[1]]
The houses of Savu are all built upon the same plan, and differ only in size, being large in proportion to the rank and riches of the proprietor. Some are four hundred feet long, and some are not more than twenty: they are all raised upon posts, or piles, about four feet high, one end of which is driven into the ground, and upon the other end is laid a substantial floor of wood, so that there is a vacant space of four feet between the floor of the house and the ground. Upon this floor are placed other posts or pillars, that support a roof of sloping sides, which meet in a ridge at the top, like those of our barns: the eaves of this roof, which is thatched with palm leaves, reach within two feet of the floor, and overhang it as much: the space within is generally divided lengthwise into three equal parts; the middle part, or centre, is inclosed by a partition of four sides, reaching about six feet above the floor, and one or two small rooms are also sometimes taken off from the sides, the rest of the space under the roof is open, so as freely to admit the air and the light: the particular uses of these different apartments, our short stay would not permit us to learn, except that the close room in the center was appropriated to the women.
The food of these people consists of every tame animal in the country, of which the hog holds the first place in their estimation, and the horse the second; next to the horse is the buffalo, next to the buffalo their poultry, and they prefer dogs and cats to sheep and goats. They are not fond of fish, and, I believe, it is never eaten but by the poor people, nor by them, except when their duty or business requires them to be upon the beach, and then every man is furnished with a light casting net, which is girt round him, and makes part of his dress; and with this he takes any small fish which happen to come in his way.
The esculent vegetables and fruits have been mentioned already, but the fan-palm requires more particular notice, for at certain times it is a succedaneum for all other food both to man and beast. A kind of wine, called toddy, is procured from this tree, by cutting the buds which are to produce flowers, soon after their appearance, and tying under them small baskets, made of the leaves, which are so close as to hold liquids without leaking. The juice which trickles into these vessels, is collected by persons who climb the trees for that purpose, morning and evening, and is the common drink of every individual upon the island; yet a much greater quantity is drawn off than is consumed in this use, and of the surplus they make both a syrup and coarse sugar. The liquor is called dua, or duac, and both the syrup and sugar, gula. The syrup is prepared by boiling the liquor down in pots of earthen ware, till it is sufficiently inspissated; it is not unlike treacle in appearance, but is somewhat thicker, and has a much more agreeable taste: the sugar is of a reddish-brown, perhaps the same with the Jugata sugar upon the continent of India, and it was more agreeable to our palates than any cane sugar, unrefined, that we had ever tasted. We were at first afraid that the syrup, of which some of our people eat very great quantities, would have brought on fluxes, but its aperient quality was so very slight, that what effect it produced was rather salutary than hurtful. I have already observed, that it is given with the husks of rice to the hogs, and that they grow enormously fat without taking any other food: we were told also, that this syrup is used to fatten their dogs and their fowls, and that the inhabitants themselves have subsisted upon this alone for several months, when other crops have failed, and animal food has been scarce. The leaves of this tree are also put to various uses, they thatch houses, and make baskets, cups, umbrellas, and tobacco pipes. The fruit is least esteemed, and as the blossoms are wounded for the tuac or toddy, there is not much of it: it is about as big as a large turnip, and covered, like the cocoa-nut, with a fibrous coat, under which are three kernels, that must be eaten before they are ripe, for afterwards they become so hard that they cannot be chewed; in their eatable state they taste not unlike a green cocoa-nut, and, like them, probably they yield a nutriment that is watery and unsubstantial.
The common method of dressing food here is by boiling, and as fire-wood is very scarce, and the inhabitants have no other fuel, they make use of a contrivance to save it, that is not wholly unknown in Europe, but is seldom practised except in camps. They dig a hollow under ground, in a horizontal direction, like a rabbit burrow, about two yards long, and opening into a hole at each end, one of which is large and the other small: by the large hole the fire is put in, and the small one serves for a draught. The earth over this burrow is perforated by circular holes, which communicate with the cavity below; and in these holes are set earthen pots, generally about three to each fire, which are large in the middle, and taper towards the bottom, so that the fire acts upon a large part of their surface. Each of these pots generally contains about eight or ten gallons, and it is surprising to see with how small a quantity of fire they may be kept boiling; a palm leaf, or a dry stalk, thrust in now and then, is sufficient: in this manner they boil all their victuals, and make all their syrup and sugar. It appears by Frazier’s account of his voyage to the South Sea, that the Peruvian Indians have a contrivance of the same kind, and perhaps it might be adopted with advantage by the poor people even of this country, where fuel is very dear.
Both sexes are enslaved by the hateful and pernicious habit of chewing betel and areca, which they contract even while they are children, and practise incessantly from morning till night. With these they always mix a kind of white lime, made of coral stone and shells, and frequently a small quantity of tobacco, so that their mouths are disgustful in the highest degree both to the smell and the sight: the tobacco taints their breath, and the betel and lime make the teeth not only as black as charcoal, but as rotten too. I have seen men between twenty and thirty, whose fore-teeth have been consumed almost down to the gums, though no two of them were exactly of the same length or thickness, but irregularly corroded like iron by rust. This loss of teeth is, I think, by all who have written upon the subject, imputed to the tough and stringy coat of the areca nut; but I impute it wholly to the lime: they are not loosened, or broken, or forced out, as might be expected, if they were injured by the continual chewing of hard and rough substances, but they are gradually wasted like metals that are exposed to the action of powerful acids; the stumps always adhering firmly to the socket in the jaw, when there is no part of the tooth above the gums: and possibly those who suppose that sugar has a bad effect upon the teeth of Europeans, may not be mistaken, for it is well known that refined loaf sugar contains a considerable quantity of lime; and he that doubts whether lime will destroy bone of any kind, may easily ascertain the fact by experiment.
If the people here are at any time without this odious mouthful, they are smoking. This operation they perform by rolling up a small quantity of tobacco, and putting it into one end of a tube about six inches long, and as thick as a goose quill, which they make of a palm leaf. As the quantity of tobacco in these pipes is very small, the effect of it is increased, especially among the women, by swallowing the smoke.
When the natives of this island were first formed into a civil society, is not certainly known, but at present it is divided into five principalities or nigrees: Laai, Seba, Regeeua, Timo, and Massara, each of which is governed by its respective raja or king. The raja of Seba, the principality in which we were ashore, seemed to have great authority, without much external parade or show, or much appearance of personal respect. He was about five-and-thirty years of age, and the fattest man we saw upon the whole island: he appeared to be of a dull phlegmatic disposition, and to be directed almost implicitly by the old man who, upon my presenting him with a sword, had procured us a fair market, in spite of the craft and avarice of the Dutch factors. The name of this person was Mannu Djarme, and it may reasonably be supposed that he was a man of uncommon integrity and abilities, as, notwithstanding his possession of power in the character of a favourite, he was beloved by the whole principality. If any difference arises among the people, it is settled by the raja and his counsellors, without delay or appeal, and, as we were told, with the most solemn deliberation and impartial justice.
We were informed by Mr. Lange, that the chiefs who had successively presided over the five principalities of this island, had lived for time immemorial in the strictest alliance and most cordial friendship with each other; yet he said the people were of a warlike disposition, and had always courageously defended themselves against foreign invaders. We were told also, that the island was able to raise, upon very short notice, 7300 fighting men, armed with muskets, spears, lances, and targets. Of this force, Laai was said to furnish 2600, Seba 2000, Regeeua 1500, Timo 800, and Massārā 400. Besides the arms that have been already mentioned, each man is furnished with a large pole axe, resembling a wood bill, except that it has a straight edge, and is much heavier: this, in the hands of people who have courage to come to close quarters with an enemy, must be a dreadful weapon; and we were told that they were so dexterous with their lances, that, at the distance of sixty feet, they would throw them with such exactness as to pierce a man’s heart, and such force as to go quite through his body.