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from her husband. Notwithstanding this some of the Eares or cheifs are I beleive perfectly virtuous. They indeed tho they have no decency in conversation have privacy; most or all of them have small houses which when they move are tied upon their Canoes; these have walls made of Cocoa nut leaves &c. in them they constantly sleep, man and wife, generaly lifting them off from their canoes and placing them on the ground in any situation they think proper.
Besides these there are another kind of houses much larger. One in our neighbourhood measurd lengh 162 feet, breadth 28½, high[t] of one of the middle row of pillars 18. These we conjecturd to be common to all the inhabitants of a district and raisd and kept up by their joint labour, of use maybe for any meetings or consultations, for the reception of any visitants of consequence, &c; such we have also seen usd as dwelling houses by the very principal people, some of them much larger than this which I have here describd.
In the article of food these happy people may almost be said to be exempt from the curse of our forefather; scarcely can it be said that they earn their bread with the sweat of their brow when their cheifest sustenance Bread fruit
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol.1) 346, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-101.html