Inhabitants of Otaheite
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marked, and some of which appeared to be the remains of very considerable wounds, made with stones, bludgeons, or some other obtuse weapon: by these scars also they appear to be no inconsiderable proficients in surgery, of which indeed we happened to have more direct evidence. One of our seamen, when he was on shore, run a large splinter into his foot, and the Surgeon being on board, one of his comrades endeavoured to take it out with a penknife; but after putting the poor fellow to a good deal of pain, was obliged to give it over. Our good old Indian, who happened to be present, then called over one of his countrymen that was standing on the opposite side of the river, who having looked at the seaman’s foot, went immediately down to the beach, and taking up a shell, broke it to a point with his teeth; with this instrument, in little more than a minute, he laid open the place, and extracted the splinter; in the mean time the old man, who, as soon as he had called the other over, went a little way into the wood, returned with some gum, which he applied to the wound upon a piece of the cloth that was wrapped round him, and in two days time it was perfectly healed. We afterwards learned that this gum was produced by the apple tree, and our Surgeon procured some of it, and used it as a vulnerary balsam with great success.
The habitations of these happy people I have described already; and besides these, we saw several sheds inclosed within a wall, on the outside of which there were several uncouth figures of men, women, hogs, and dogs, carved on posts, that were driven into the ground. Several of the natives were from time to time seen to enter these places, with a slow pace and dejected countenance, from which we conjectured that they were repositories of the dead. The area within the walls of these places, was generally well paved
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Volume I of the London 1773 Edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 485, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv01/485.html