Inhabitants of Otaheite
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also wrapped up in the leaves of the plantain; over these they spread the remainder of the embers, mixing among them some of the hot stones, with more cocoa-nut-tree leaves upon them, and then close all up with earth, so that the heat is kept in. After a time proportioned to the size of what is dressing, the oven is opened, and the meat taken out, which is tender, full of gravy, and, in my opinion, better in every respect than when it is dressed any other way. Excepting the fruit, they have no sauce but salt water, nor any knives but shells, with which they carve very dexterously, always cutting from them. It is impossible to describe the astonishment they expressed when they saw the Gunner, who, while he kept the market, used to dine on shore, dress his pork and poultry by boiling them in a pot, having, as I have before observed, no vessel that would bear the fire, they had no idea of hot water or its effects: but from the time that the old man was in possession of an iron pot, he and his friends eat boiled meat every day. The iron pots which I afterwards gave to the queen, and several of the Chiefs, were also in constant use, and brought as many people together, as a monster or a puppet-show in a country fair. They appeared to have no liquor for drinking but water, and to be happily ignorant of the art of fermenting the juice of any vegetable, so as to give it an intoxicating quality: they have, as has been already observed, the sugarcane, but they seemed to make no other use of it than to chew, which they do not do habitually, but only break a piece off when they happen to pass by a place where it is growing.
Of their domestic life and amusements, we had not sufficient opportunity to obtain much knowlege, but they appear sometimes to have wars with each other, not only from their weapons, but the scars with which many of them were
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 484, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/484.html