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Ulietea, Otaha and Bolabola
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Ulietea, Otaha and Bolabola (continued)
Bolabola men at this time posess great part of the lands on Ulietea and Otaha that they have taken from the natives The Lands adjoining to the Harbour of Oraotanue belonged to T obiaupia the Person we have on board who is a native of Ulietea. This people are very ingenious in building their Proes or Canoes and seem to take as much care of them having large shades or houses to put them in built for the purpose and in these houses they likewise build and repair them and in this ^ they shew a great deal of ingenuity, far more than one could expect: they are built full bellied and after the very same moddl model as those Six we saw on Georges Island and which I have already described, ^ and some of them are full as large and it is more than probable that these six Proes were built at some of these Islands. In these Proes or Canoes, or Pahee's as the[y] call them from all the accounts we can learn, these people sail in those seas from Island to Island for several hundred Leagues, the Sun serving them for a compass by day and the Moon and Stars by night. When this comes to be prov'd / which I have now not the least doubt / we shall be no longer at a loss to know ^ how the Islands lying in those Seas came to be people'd, for if the inhabitants of Uleitea have been at Islands laying 2 or 300 Leagues to the westward of them it cannot be doubted but that the inhabitants of those western Islands may have been at others as far to westward of them, and so we may trace them from Island to Island quite to the East Indias —
© Transcribed from National Library of Australia Manuscript 1 page 104, 2004
Published by South Seas
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/cook_remarks-043
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