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faces mark'd or tattow'd with black and some few we have seen who have had their buttocks thighs and other parts of their bodies mark'd but this is less common. the figures they mostly use are spirals drawn and connected together with great nicety and judgement. they are so exact in the application of these figures that no difference can be found between the one side of the face and the other if the whole is mark'd for some have only one side and ^some a little on both sides, hardly any but the old men have the whole tattowd from this I conclude that it takes up some time perhaps years to finish the operation which all who have begun may not have perseverance enough to go through as the manner in which it must be done must certainly cause intolerable pain and may be the reason why so few are mark'd att all at least I know no other. The ^women inlay the colour of black under the skins of their lips and both sexes paint their faces and bodies at times more or less with red oker mix'd with fish oyle —
Their common clothing are very much like square thrum'd matts that are made of rope yarns &Ca to lay at the doors or passages into houses to clean one shoes upon, these they tye round their necks ^the thrum'd side out and are generaly large enough to cover the body as low as the knee they are made ^with very little preparation of the^broad grass plant before mentioned
and they always wear the thrum'd side out, besides these thrum'd matts as I call them they have other much finer- clothing made of the same plant after it is bleached and prepar'd in such a manner that it is as white and
Voyaging Accounts
© Transcribed from National Library of Australia Manuscript 1 page 210, 2004
Published by South Seas
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/cook_remarks-055