The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World. Vol. VI. Being the Second of the Third VoyageCook, James
History
The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World. Vol. VI. Being the Second of the Third Voyage
Cook, James
Cook, James, 1728-1779 -- Travel; Explorers -- Great Britain -- Biography; Voyages around the world -- History -- 18th century
As none of these people lived in the bay where we anchored, or where any
of us landed, we saw none of their habitations, and I had not time to
look after them. Of their domestic utensils, they brought in their boats
some round and oval shallow dishes of wood; and others of a cylindrical
shape much deeper. The sides were made of one piece, bent round like
chip-boxes, though thick, neatly fastened with thongs, and the bottoms
fixed in with small wooden pegs. Others were smaller and of a more
elegant shape, somewhat resembling a large oval butter-boat without a
handle, but more shallow, made from a piece of wood or horny substance.
These last were sometimes neatly carved. They had many little square
bags, made of the same gut with their outer frocks, neatly ornamented
with very minute red feathers interwoven with it, in which were
contained some very fine sinews and bundles of small cord made from
them, most ingeniously platted. They also brought many chequered baskets
so closely wrought as to hold water, some wooden models of their canoes,
a good many little images four or five inches long, either of wood or
stuffed, which were covered with a bit of fur, and ornamented with
pieces of small quill feathers, in imitation of their shelly beads, with
hair fixed on their heads. Whether these might be mere toys for
children, or held in veneration as representing their deceased friends,
and applied to some superstitious purpose, we could not determine. But
they have many instruments made of two or three hoops, or concentric
pieces of wood, with a cross-bar fixed in the middle, to hold them by.
To these are fixed a great number of dried barnacle-shells, with
threads, which serve as a rattle, and make a loud noise when they shake
them. This contrivance seems to be a substitute for the rattling-bird at
Nootka, and perhaps both of them are employed on the same occasions.[67]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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