Cook's Descriptions of Places, King Georges Island, page 30

Page 30

Cook's Descriptions of Places

King Georges Island

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King Georges Island (continued)

ideas are of it I know not. We have seen in some few places small houses set apart on purpose for the recept[i]on of the oblations offer'd to the Eatua which consists in small strips of Cloth Viands &C^a I am of opinion that they offer to the Eatua a strip or _^ ^small peice of every peice of cloth they make before they use it themselves and it is _^ ^not unlikely but what they observe the same thing with respect to thier Victuals, but as there are but few of these houses this cannot be a common custom, it may only be observed by the priest and such families as are more regilious that [than] others: now I have mentioned preists, these are men who excerise that function of which number T~~obia~~_^^upia is one / they seem to be in no great repute niether can they live wholy by their profession and this leads me to think that these people are no bigots to their regelion- The priests on some occasions ~~perform~~ _^ ^do the office of Physicions and their prescriptions consi[s]ts in performing some religious ceremony before the sick person, they likewise Crown the Eare dehi or King in the performing of which we are told much form and ceremony is used after which every one is at liberty to treat and play as many _^ ^tricks with the new King as he pleaseth during the remainder of the day —

There is a ceremony which they perform at or after the funerals of the dead which I had forgot to mention at the time we happend to see it. sometime before we left the Island an old woman an relation of Tooboura Temeidu happend to die and was entar'd in the usual manner. for several successive evenings after one of her relations dress'd himself in a very odd dress which I cannot tell how to describe or to convey a

Voyaging Accounts

© Transcribed from National Library of Australia Manuscript 1 page 89, 2004
Published by South Seas
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/cook_remarks-030