A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 13

by Robert Kerr

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 shed.[7]

[Footnote 7: If the Otaheitans were little benefited by the attempts of Europeans to rear cattle among them, as we have seen, they were certainly indebted for the introduction of another race of animals, not at all likely to degenerate or die out in a climate so much more congenial to their nature, than the comparatively inclement regions of our hemisphere, where, notwithstanding the activity of hostile hands, they are known to propagate with most vexatious activity. "Their houses," says the missionary account, "are full of fleas, which harbour in the floor, and are very troublesome, though the natives are much less affected by them than we are; they say they were brought to them by the Europeans. One of our missionaries writes, he has been obliged to get up at midnight, and to run into the sea to cool himself, and to get rid of the swarm of disagreeable companions." The poor missionary was worse off among the fleas, than even Mr Barrow in the midst of the musquitoes, from which, it does not seem, that he ever had occasion to seek refuge, in any such untimely ablution.--E.]

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 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.[8]

[Footnote 8: Let us for once hear the missionary account, in palliation at least, of such clamant enormities. "They have no partitions in their houses; but it may be affirmed, they have in many instances more refined ideas of decency than ourselves; and one long a resident, scruples not to declare, that he never saw any appetite, hunger and thirst excepted, gratified in public. It is too true, that for the sake of gaining our extraordinary curiosities, and to please our brutes, they have appeared immodest in the extreme. Yet they lay the charge wholly at our door, and say, that Englishmen are ashamed of nothing, and that we have led them to public acts of indecency never before practised among themselves. Iron here, more precious than gold, bears down every barrier of restraint. Honesty and modesty yield to the force of temptation." A remark may be made here of some consequence. In estimating the momentum of temptations, we ought to consider not only their direct strength, but also what is known or believed of the extent of their influence on the society to which people belong. A man, it is certain, will much more readily acquiesce in those which he has reason to think common to his fellow creatures, than in others exclusively directed to himself. In the one case he anticipates sympathy, should he transgress; in the other, he is deterred by the apprehension of being singular in guilt. The Otaheitans were in the former predicament, and accordingly were perhaps universally accessible to the charms of nails and hatchets and beads. Whereas, it is probable, that had even similar solicitations been attempted in any instances unknown to each other, they would perhaps have been resisted. But vice once known to be established in society, becomes daily more prolific of its kind, and, like the Fama of Virgil, vires acquirit eundo. It is but fair to give these islanders the full benefit of this principle, when we sit in assize on them. Pray who can tell what would be the consequence of a visit from some of the inhabitants of Saturn, or the Georgium Sidus, should they open up their ultramundane treasures in sight of the British court? Is it conceivable, that the lovers of embroidery, and lace and diamonds would resist the witcheries of the strangers?--or that the marvellous effects of their liberality in distribution, should be confined within the walls of St James's? He that can wisely answer these questions, is at liberty to return a verdict in the trial of the Otaheitans.--E.]

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, if 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, 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.