Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places, South Sea Islands, page 123

Page 123

Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places

South Sea Islands

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South Sea Islands (continued)

the Europeans. To this may also be added a fault which is too frequent even among the politest nations, I mean an invincible attachment to the Customs which they have learnt from their forefathers which these people are indeed in this degree excusable for: they derive their original not from Creation but from the womb of an inferior divinity who was herself with those of equal rank descended from the God Causer of Earthquakes; they therefore look upon it as a Kind of Sacriledge to attempt to amend Customs which they suppose to have had their original either from their deities or their first ancestors, who they hold as little inferior to the divin[i]ties themselves.

The thing in which they shew the most ingenuity is the making and dying of their Cloth: in the description of these especialy the latter I shall be rather diffuse, as I am not without hopes that my countrey men may receive some advantage either from the things themselves or at least by hints derivd from them.

The Material of which it is made is the interior bark or liber of 3 sorts of trees, the Chinese paper mulberry Morus Papyrifera, the Breadfruit tree Sitodium

Voyaging Accounts

© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol.1) 368, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-123.html