EMPLOYMENTS OF THE WOMEN AT THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS.—OF THE MEN.—AGRICULTURE.—CONSTRUCTION OF THEIR HOUSES.—THEIR WORKING TOOLS.—CORDAGE, AND FISHING IMPLEMENTS.—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS.—WEAPONS.—FOOD AND COOKERY.—AMUSEMENTS.—MARRIAGE.—MOURNING CEREMONIES FOR THE DEAD.—THEIR DIVINITIES.—NOTIONS ABOUT THE SOUL AND A FUTURE STATE.—THEIR PLACES OF WORSHIP.—GOVERNMENT.—MANNER OF PAYING OBEISANCE TO THE KING.—ACCOUNT OF THE ROYAL FAMILY.—REMARKS ON THEIR LANGUAGE, AND A SPECIMEN OF IT.—NAUTICAL AND OTHER OBSERVATIONS.
Their domestic life is of that middle kind, neither so laborious as to be disagreeable, nor so vacant as to suffer them to degenerate into indolence. Nature has done so much for their country, that the first can hardly occur, and their disposition seems to be a pretty good bar to the last. By this happy combination of circumstances, their necessary labour seems to yield in its turn to their recreations, in such a manner, that the latter are never interrupted by the thoughts of being obliged to recur to the former, till satiety makes them wish for such a transition.
The employment of the women is of the easy kind, and, for the most part, such as may be executed in the house. The manufacturing their cloth, is wholly consigned to their care. Having already described the process, I shall only add, that they have this cloth of different degrees of fineness. The coarser sort, of which they make very large pieces, does not receive the impression of any pattern. Of the finer sort they have some that is striped and chequered, and of other patterns differently coloured. But how these colours are laid on, I cannot say, as I never saw any of this sort made. The cloth in general will resist water for some time; but that which has the strongest glaze will resist longest.
The manufacture next in consequence, and also within the department of the women, is that of their mats, which excel every thing I have seen at any other place, both as to their texture and their beauty. In particular, many of them are so superior to those made at Otaheite, that they are not a bad article to carry thither by way of trade. Of these mats, they have seven or eight different sorts, for the purposes of wearing or sleeping upon, and many are merely ornamental. The last are chiefly made from the tough membraneous part of the stock of the plantain tree; those that they wear from the pandanus, cultivated for that purpose, and never suffered to shoot into a trunk; and the coarser sort, which they sleep upon, from a plant called evarra. There are many other articles of less note, that employ the spare time of their females; as combs of which they make vast numbers; and little baskets made of the same substance as the mats, and others of the fibrous cocoa-nut husk, either plain or interwoven with small beads; but all finished with such neatness and taste in the disposition of the various parts, that a stranger cannot help admiring their assiduity and dexterity.
The province allotted to the men is, as might be expected, far more laborious and extensive than that of the women. Agriculture, architecture, boat-building, fishing, and other things that relate to navigation, are the objects of their care.[[205]] Cultivated roots and fruits being their principal support, this requires their constant attention to agriculture, which they pursue very diligently, and seem to have brought almost to as great perfection as circumstances will permit. The large extent of the plantain fields has been taken notice of already; and the same may be said of the yams; these two together being at least as ten to one with respect to all the other articles. In planting both these, they dig small holes for their reception, and afterward root up the surrounding grass, which, in this hot country is quickly deprived of its vegetating power, and soon rotting, becomes a good manure. The instruments they use for this purpose, which they call hooo, are nothing more than pickets or stakes of different lengths, according to the depth they have to dig. These are flattened and sharpened to an edge at one end; and the largest have a short piece fixed transversely, for pressing it into the ground with the foot. With these, though they are not more than from two to four inches broad, they dig and plant ground of many acres in extent. In planting the plantains and yams, they observe so much exactness, that whichever way you look, the rows present themselves regular and complete.
The cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees are scattered about without any order, and seem to give them no trouble after they have attained a certain height. The same may be said of another large tree which produces great numbers of a large roundish compressed nut, called eeefee; and of a smaller tree that bears a rounded oval nut two inches long, with two or three triangular kernels, tough and insipid, called mabba, most frequently planted near their houses.
The kappe is commonly regularly planted, and in pretty large spots; but the mawhaha is interspersed amongst other things, as the jeejee and yams are; the last of which, I have frequently seen in the interspaces of the plantain trees at their common distance. Sugar-cane is commonly in small spots, crowded closely together; and the mulberry, of which the cloth is made, though without order, has sufficient room allowed for it, and is kept very clean. The only other plant, that they cultivate for their manufactures, is the pandanus; which is generally planted in a row close together at the sides of the other fields; and they consider it as a thing so distinct in this state, that they have a different name for it; which shows that they are very sensible of the great changes brought about by cultivation.
It is remarkable that these people, who in many things show much taste and ingenuity, should show little of either in building their houses; though the defect is rather in the design, than in the execution. Those of the lower people are poor huts, scarcely sufficient to defend them from the weather, and very small. Those of the better sort are larger and more comfortable; but not what one might expect. The dimensions of one of a middling size are about thirty feet long, twenty broad, and twelve high. Their house is, properly speaking a thatched roof or shed, supported by posts and rafters disposed in a very judicious manner. The floor is raised with earth smoothed, and covered with strong thick matting, and kept very clean. The most of them are closed on the weather side (and some more than two-thirds round), with strong mats or with branches of the cocoa-nut tree, platted or woven into each other. These they fix up edgewise, reaching from the eaves to the ground; and thus they answer the purpose of a wall. A thick strong mat about two and one half or three feet broad, bent into the form of a semi-circle, and set upon its edge, with the ends touching the side of the house, in shape resembling the fender of a fire-hearth, encloses a space for the master and mistress of the family to sleep in. The lady, indeed, spends most of her time during the day within it. The rest of the family sleep upon the floor, wherever they please to lie down; the unmarried men and women apart from each other; or, if the family be large, there are small huts adjoining to which the servants retire in the night; so that privacy is as much observed here, as one could expect. They have mats made on purpose for sleeping on; and the clothes that they wear in the day, serve for their covering in the night. Their whole furniture consists of a bowl or two, in which they make kava; a few gourds; cocoa-nut shells; some small wooden stools which serve them for pillows; and, perhaps, a large stool for the chief or master of the family to sit upon.
The only probable reason I can assign for their neglect of ornamental architecture in the construction of their houses, is their being fond of living much in the open air. Indeed, they seem to consider their houses, within which they seldom eat, as of little use but to sleep in, and to retire to in bad weather. And the lower sort of people who spend a great part of their time in close attendance upon the chiefs, can have little use for their own houses, but in the last case.
They make amends for the defects of their houses, by their great attention to, and dexterity in naval architecture, if I may be allowed to give it that name. But I refer to the narrative of my last voyage for an account of their canoes, and their manner of building and navigating them.[[206]]