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It is very wonderful, that these people, who are remarkably fond of society, and particularly that of their women, should exclude its pleasures from the table, where among all other nations, whether civil or savage, they have been principally enjoyed. How a meal, which every where else brings families and friends together, came to separate them here, we often enquired, but could never learn. They eat alone, they said, because it was right; but why it was right to eat alone, they never attempted to tell us: such, however, was the force of habit, that they expressed the strongest dislike, and even disgust, at our eating in society, especially with our women, and of the same victuals. At first, we thought this strange singularity arose from some superstitious opinion; but they constantly affirmed the contrary. We observed also some caprices in the custom, for which we could as little account as for the custom itself. We could never prevail with any of the women to partake of the victuals at our table when we were dining in company; yet they would go, five or six together, into the servants apartments, and there eat very heartily of whatever they could find, of which I have before given a particular instance; nor were they in the least disconcerted if we came in while they were doing it. When any of us have been alone with a woman, she has sometimes eaten in our company; but then she has expressed the greatest unwillingness that it should be known, and always extorted the strongest promises of secrecy.
Among themselves, even two brothers and two sisters have each their separate baskets, with provision and the apparatus of their meal. When they first visited us at our tents, each brought his basket with him; and when we sat down to table, they would go out, sit down upon the ground, at two or three yards distance from each other, and turning their faces different ways, take their repast without interchanging a single word.
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 203 - 204, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/203.html