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
In the morning of the 25th, Otoo, Mr King, and Omai, returned from
Attahooroo; and Mr King gave me the following account of what he had
seen:
"Soon after you left me, a second messenger came from Towha to Otoo,
with a plantain-tree. It was sun-set when we embarked in a canoe
and left Oparre. About nine o'clock we landed at Tettaha, at that
extremity which joins to Attahooroo. Before we landed, the people
called to us from the shore; probably, to tell us that Towha was
there. The meeting of Otoo and this chief, I expected, would afford
some incident worthy of observation. Otoo, and his attendants, went
and seated themselves on the beach, close to the canoe in which Towha
was. He was then asleep; but his servants having awakened him, and
mentioning Otoo's name, immediately a plantain-tree and a dog were
laid at Otoo's feet; and many of Towha's people came and talked with
him, as I conceived, about their expedition to Eimeo. After I had, for
some time, remained seated close to Otoo, Towha neither stirring from
his canoe, nor holding any conversation with us, I went to him. He
asked me if _Toote_ was angry with him. I answered, No: that he was
his _taio_; and that he had ordered me to go to Attahooroo to tell
him so. Omai now had a long conversation with this chief; but I could
gather no information of any kind from him. On my returning to
Otoo, he seemed desirous that I should go to eat, and then to sleep.
Accordingly, Omai and I left him. On questioning Omai, he said, the
reason of Towha's not stirring from his canoe, was his being lame; but
that, presently, Otoo and he would converse together in private. This
seemed true; for in a little time, those we left with Otoo came to us;
and, about ten minutes after, Otoo himself arrived, and we all went to
sleep in his canoe.
"The next morning, the _ava_ was in great plenty. One man drank so
much that he lost his senses. I should have supposed him to be in a
fit, from the convulsions that agitated him. Two men held him, and
kept plucking off his hair by the roots. I left this spectacle to see
another that was more affecting. This was the meeting of Towha and his
wife, and a young girl, whom I understood to be his daughter. After
the ceremony of cutting their heads, and discharging a tolerable
quantity of blood and tears, they washed, embraced the chief, and
seemed unconcerned. But the young girl's sufferings were not yet come
to an end. Terridiri[2] arrived; and she went, with great composure,
to repeat the same ceremonies to him, which she had just performed on
meeting her father. Towha had brought a large war-canoe from Eimeo. I
enquired if he had killed the people belonging to her; and was told,
that there was no man in her when she was captured.
[Footnote 2: Terridiri was Oberea's son. See an account of the royal
family of Otaheite, in this Collection, vol. xii. p. 482.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account