The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World. Vol. V. Being the First of the Third VoyageCook, James
History
The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World. Vol. V. Being the First of the Third Voyage
Cook, James
Cook, James, 1728-1779 -- Travel; Explorers -- Great Britain -- Biography; Voyages around the world -- History -- 18th century
The weapons which they make are clubs of different sorts (in the
ornamenting of which they spend much time), spears, and darts. They have
also bows and arrows; but these seemed to be designed only for
amusement, such as shooting at birds, and not for military purposes. The
stools are about two feet long, but only four or five inches high, and
near four broad, bending downward in the middle, with four strong legs
and circular feet; the whole made of one piece of black or brown wood,
neatly polished, and sometimes inlaid with bits of ivory. They also
inlay the handles of fly-flaps with ivory, after being neatly carved;
and they shape bones into small figures of men, birds, and other things,
which must be very difficult, as their carving instrument is only a
shark’s tooth.
Yams, plantains, and cocoa-nuts, compose the greatest part of their
vegetable diet. Of their animal food, the chief articles are hogs,
fowls, fish, and all sorts of shell-fish; but the lower people eat rats.
The two first vegetable articles, with bread-fruit, are what may be
called the basis of their food, at different times of the year, with
fish and shell-fish; for hogs, fowls, and turtle, seem only to be
occasional dainties reserved for their chiefs. The intervals between the
seasons of these vegetable productions must be, sometimes, considerable,
as they prepare a sort of artificial bread from plantains, which they
put under ground before ripe, and suffer them to remain, till they
ferment, when they are taken out, and made up into small balls; but so
sour and indifferent, that they often said our bread was preferable,
though somewhat musty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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