On this day ...
23 August 1770
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
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Both sexes, as I have already observed, go stark naked, and seem to have no more sense of indecency in discovering the whole body, than we have in discovering our hands and face. Their principal ornament is the bone which they thrust through the cartilage that divides the nostrils from each other: what perversion of taste could make them think this a decoration, or what could prompt them, before they had worn it or seen it worn, to suffer the pain and inconvenience that must of necessity attend it, is perhaps beyond the power of human sagacity to determine: as this bone is as thick as a man’s finger, and between five and six inches long, it reaches quite across the face, and so effectually stops up both the nostrils that they are forced to keep their mouths wide open for breath, and snuffle so when they attempt to speak, that they are scarcely intelligible even to each other. Our seamen, with some humour, called it their spritsail-yard; and indeed it had so ludicrous an appearance, that till we were used to it, we found it difficult to refrain from laughter. Beside this nose-jewel, they had necklaces made of shells, very neatly cut and strung together; bracelets of small cord, wound two or three times about the upper part of their arm, and a string of plaited human hair about as thick as a thread of yarn, tied round the waist. Besides these, some of them had gorgets of shells hanging round the neck, so as to reach cross the breast. But though these people wear no clothes, their bodies have a covering besides the dirt, for they paint them both white and red: the red is commonly laid on in broad patches upon the shoulders and breast; and the white in stripes, some narrow, and some broad: the narrow were drawn over the limbs, and the broad over the body, not without some degree of taste. The white was also laid on in small patches upon the face, and drawn in a circle round each eye. The red seemed to be ochre, but what the white was we could not discover; it was close grained, saponaceous to the touch, and almost as heavy as white lead; possibly it might be a kind of Steatites, but to our great regret we could not procure a bit of it to examine. They have holes in their ears, but we never saw any thing worn in them. Upon such ornaments as they had, they set so great a value, that they would never part with the least article for any thing we could offer; which was the more extraordinary as our beads and ribbons were ornaments of the same kind, but of a more regular form and more showy materials. They had indeed no idea of traffic, nor could we communicate any to them: they received the things that we gave them; but never appeared to understand our signs when we required a return. The same indifference which prevented them from buying what we had, prevented them also from attempting to steal: if they had coveted more, they would have been less honest; for when we refused to give them a turtle, they were enraged, and attempted to take it by force, and we had nothing else upon which they seemed to set the least value; for, as I have before observed, many of the things that we had given them, we found left negligently about in the woods, like the playthings of children, which please only while they are new. Upon their bodies we saw no marks of disease or sores, but large scars in irregular lines, which appeared to be the remains of wounds which they had inflicted upon themselves with some blunt instrument, and which we understood by signs to have been memorials of grief for the dead.
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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 634 - 634, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
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