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or Tattow as it is calld in their language. This they do by inlaying the colour of Black under their skins in such a manner as to be indelible; every one is markd thus in different parts of his body according may be to his humour or different circumstances of his life. Some have ill designd figures of men, birds or dogs, but they more generaly have this figure
eitheir simply, as the women are generaly marked with it, on every Joint of their fingers and toes and often round the outside of their feet, or in different figures of it as square, circles, crescents &c. which both sexes have on their arms and leggs; in short they have an infinite diversity of figures in which they place this mark and some of them we were told had significations but this we never learnt to our satisfaction. Their faces are in general left without any marks, I did not see more than one instance to the contrary. Some few old men had the greatest part of their bodies coverd with large patches of black which ended in deep indentations like coarse imitations of flame, these we were told were not natives of Otahite but came there from a low Island called Noouoora.
Tho they are so various in the application of the figures I have mentiond that both the
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol.1) 336, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-091.html