Their arms were long lances, made of the Etoa, the wood of which is very hard; they were well polished and sharpened at one end: some were near twenty feet long, though not more than three fingers thick: they had also a weapon which was both club and pike, made of the same wood, about seven feet long; this also was well polished, and sharpened at one end into a broad point. As a guard against these weapons, when they attack each other, they have matts folded up many times, which they place under their clothes from the neck to the waist: the weapons themselves indeed are capable of much less mischief than those of the same kind which we saw at the other islands, for the lances were there pointed with the sharp bone of the stingray that is called the sting, and the pikes were of much greater weight. The other things that we saw here were all superior in their kind to any we had seen before; the cloth was of a better colour in the dye, and painted with greater neatness and taste; the clubs were better cut and polished, and the canoe, though a small one, was very rich in ornament, and the carving was executed in a better manner: among other decorations peculiar to this canoe, was a line of small white feathers, which hung from the head and stern on the outside, and which, when we saw them, were thoroughly wetted by the spray.

Voyaging Accounts