The Natural History of the Varieties of ManLatham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
Science
The Natural History of the Varieties of Man
Latham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
Ethnology
"The younger women were often gracefully formed, with pleasing
expressions of countenance, though not what we should consider handsome
features. The girls had their hair rather long, but the women had
almost all their hair cut short, with a bushy ridge over the top, to
which they, singularly enough, give the same name as to pieces of
tortoise-shell, namely, kaisu. Many of the elder women had their
heads shaved quite smoothly, and we never saw a woman wearing a wig,
or with the long ringlets of the men. At our first landing, all the
younger women and girls kept in the back-ground, or hid themselves in
the bush. On strolling to the back of the huts, we found a small native
path, along which we went a short distance till we came to a rude fence
in front of a plantain-ground, where the men objected to our going
further, and we heard the voices of the women among the trees beyond.
"There were four huts at this spot, all bee-hive shaped, sixteen feet
in diameter, and as much in height. They stood in small court-yards,
partially surrounded by fences formed of poles of bamboo, stuck upright
in the ground, close together, and connected by horizontal rails, to
which they were tied by withies. Inside the huts were small platforms
covered with mats, apparently bed-places; and over head were hung up
bows and arrows, clubs, calabashes, rolls of matting, and bundles
apparently containing bones, which they did not like our examining.
Outside the huts were one or two small open sheds, consisting merely of
a raised flat roof, to sit under in the shade, and a grove of very fine
cocoa-nut trees surrounded the houses."
The arms of the natives were the bow and arrow, and in holding the
former, especial care was taken that the part of the wood which was
uppermost as the tree grew, should be uppermost when used as a weapon.
Rough imitations of the human figure were common; but whether they
served as idols or not was uncertain. The use of tobacco was general.
The language was different from that of the Australians, and the
willingness of the people to communicate, greater, also. On the part
of the females, the reserve and decorum of manner formed a striking
contrast with the very different habits of the Polynesians.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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