The Cannibal Islands: Captain Cook's Adventure in the South Seas

by R. M. Ballantyne

Their clothing consisted of native-made cloth or matting, and was very scanty, but in many cases was tastefully put on and intermingled with flowers. Some of the men wore a feather in their hair; others wore a wig made of the hair of men and dogs. Both sexes wore ear-rings made of pieces of stones, shells, or berries, which were speedily exchanged, however, for the beads given them by the sailors, for, like all other savages, they delighted in gay ornaments.

The houses of these people were very simple. They consisted of nothing more than a thatched roof mounted upon pillars. They had no walls whatever, and were open to every wind of heaven, but in so warm a climate this was not considered a disadvantage. There were no rooms or partitions of any kind in them, and they were usually large. Some belonged to families, others were the public property of a district, and these last were sometimes two hundred feet long by thirty broad.

All the houses were built in the woods that lay between the sea and the mountains. No more ground was cleared for each house than was just sufficient to prevent the droppings of the branches from falling on the roof; so that the inhabitant could step at once from his cottage into the shade of the forest, which was the most delightful and romantic that could be imagined. It consisted of groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees without underwood, and paths led in all directions through it from one house to another. Only those travellers who have experienced the intense overpowering heat of tropical countries can form a just conception of the enjoyableness of a ramble through the shady groves of Tahiti.

The food eaten by the natives was chiefly vegetable. They had tame hogs, dogs, and poultry, but these were not plentiful, and the visit of Cook’s ship soon diminished the numbers of animals very considerably. When a chief killed a hog it was divided almost equally amongst his dependants, and as these were numerous, the share of each individual at a feast was not large. Dogs and fowls fell to the lot of the lower classes. Cook says that he could not commend the flavour of their fowls, but he and his crew unanimously agreed that a South-Sea dog was little inferior to English lamb! He conjectured that their excellence was owing to the fact that they were fed exclusively upon vegetables.

Like everything else in Tahiti, the art of cooking was somewhat peculiar. The preparation of a dog for dinner is thus described:—

“The dog, which was very fat, we consigned over to Tupia, who undertook to perform the double office of butcher and cook. He killed him by holding his hands close over his mouth and nose, an operation which continued above a quarter of an hour. While this was going on, a hole was made in the ground about a foot deep, in which a fire was kindled, and some small stones were placed in layers alternately with the wood to get heated. The dog was then singed by holding him over the fire, and by scraping him with a shell the hair came off as clean as if he had been scalded in hot water. He was then cut up with the same instrument, and his entrails being taken out, were sent to the sea, where, being carefully washed, they were put into cocoa-nut shells with what blood came from the body.

“When the hole was sufficiently heated, the fire was removed, and some of the stones,—which were not so hot as to discolour anything that touched them,—being placed in the bottom, were covered with green leaves. The dog and the entrails were then placed upon the leaves, other leaves were placed above them, the whole was covered up with the remainder of the hot stones, and the mouth of the hole was closed with mould. In somewhat less than four hours it was again opened and the dog taken out excellently baked. Nearly all the fish and flesh eaten by the inhabitants is dressed in this way.”

The sea in those regions affords the natives great variety of fish; the smaller of which they usually eat raw. They have also lobsters, crabs, and other shell-fish, all of which they are very fond of. Indeed, nothing seems to come amiss to them. They even eat what sailors call blubbers, though some of these are so tough that they have to allow them to become putrid before they can chew them.

Their chief vegetable, the bread-fruit, is so curious a plant that it merits particular notice. It costs them no more trouble or labour to procure it than the climbing of a tree. In regard to this tree Cook says that 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 sufficiently fulfil his duty to his own and to future generations. True, the bread-fruit is not always in season; but when its ready-made loaves are not to be had, the South-Sea islander has plenty of cocoa-nuts, bananas, plantains, and other fruits to supply its place.

The bread-fruit tree is large and beautiful. Its trunk, which is light-coloured and rough, grows to a height of twelve or twenty feet, and is sometimes three feet in diameter. Its leaves are broad, dark green, and a foot or eighteen inches long. The fruit, about the size of a child’s head, is round, covered with a rough rind, and is at first of a light pea-green hue; subsequently it changes to brown, and when fully ripe, assumes a rich yellow colour. It hangs to the branches singly, or in clusters of two or three together. One of these magnificent trees, clothed with its dark shining leaves and loaded with many hundreds of large light green or yellowish fruit, is one of the most beautiful objects to be met with among the islands of the south.