A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
The common dress both of the women and of the men has been already
described. The first have often much larger pieces of cloth wrapped
round them, reaching from just below the breasts to the hams or lower;
and several were seen with pieces thrown loosely about the shoulders,
which covered the greatest part of the body; but the children when
very young are quite naked. They wear nothing upon the head; but the
hair in both sexes is cut in different forms; and the general fashion,
especially among the women, is to have it long before and short
behind. The men often had it cut or shaved on each side, in such a
manner, that the remaining part, in some measure, resembles the crest
of their caps or helmets formerly described. Both sexes, however, seem
very careless about their hair, and have nothing like combs to dress
it with. Instances of wearing it in a singular manner were sometimes
met with among the men, who twist it into a number of separate
parcels, like the tails of a wig, each about the thickness of a
finger; though the greatest part of these, which are so long that they
reach far down the back, we observed were artificially fixed upon the
head over their own hair.[1]
[Footnote 1: The print of Horn Island, which we meet with in Mr
Dalrymple's account of Le Maire and Schouten's voyage, represents some
of the natives of that island with such long tails hanging from their
heads as are here described. See Dalrymple's Voyages to the South
Pacific, vol. ii. p. 58.--D]
It is remarkable, that, contrary to the general practice of the
islands we had hitherto discovered in the Pacific Ocean, the people of
the Sandwich Islands have not their ears perforated; nor have they
the least idea of wearing ornaments in them. Both sexes, nevertheless,
adorn themselves with necklaces made of bunches of small black cord,
like our hat-string, often above a hundred-fold; exactly like those
of Wateeoo; only that instead of the two little balls on the middle
before, they fix a small bit of wood, stone, or shell, about two
inches long, with a broad hook turning forward at its lower part well
polished. They have likewise necklaces of many strings of very small
shells, or of the dried flowers of the Indian mallow. And sometimes a
small human image of bone, about three inches long, neatly polished,
is hung round the neck. The women also wear bracelets of a single
shell, pieces of black wood, with bits of ivory interspersed and well
polished, fixed by a string drawn very closely through them; or others
of hogs' teeth laid parallel to each other, with the concave part
outward, and the points cut off, fastened together as the former; some
of which made only of large boars' tusks are very elegant. The men
sometimes wear plumes of the tropic-bird's feathers stuck in their
heads; or those of cocks, fastened round neat polished sticks two feet
long, commonly decorated at the lower part with _oora_; and for the
same purpose, the skin of a white dog's tail is sewed over a stick
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