On this day ...
5 - 9 June 1769
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
Transcript of Cook's Journal
Joseph Banks's Journal
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
Ceremonies of a Funeral and General Observations on that Subject
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Perhaps no better use can be made of reading an account of manners altogether new, by which the follies and absurdities of mankind are taken out of that particular connection in which habit has reconciled them to us, than to consider in how many instances they are essentially the same. When an honest devotee of the Church of Rome reads, that there are Indians on the banks of the Ganges, who believe that they shall secure the happiness of a future state by dying with a cow’s tail in their hands, he laughs at their folly and superstition; and if these Indians were to be told, that there are people upon the continent of Europe, who imagine that they shall derive the same advantage from dying with the slipper of a St. Francis upon their foot, they would laugh in their turn. But if, when the Indian heard the account of the Catholic, and the Catholic that of the Indian, each was to reflect, that there was no difference between the absurdity of the slipper and of the tail; but that the veil of prejudice and custom, which covered it in their own cafe, was withdrawn in the other, they would turn their knowlege to a profitable purpose.
Having observed that bread-fruit had for some days been brought in less quantities than usual, we enquired the reason; and were told, that there being a great show of fruit upon the trees, they had been thinned all at once, in order to make a kind of sour paste, which the natives call Mahie, and which, in consequence of having undergone a fermentation, will keep a considerable time, and supply them with food when no ripe fruit is to be had.
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© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, page 145, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/145.html