If any Person wishes to have his son or Daughter instituted into the Society he procures an Areeuoy to be His Son or Daughters Friend and Adopts him for His Son by performing the Amoa (before described) towards Him and His Son or Daughter at the Morai and the Child is acknowledged an Areeuoy immediately the Ceremony is over, and May Continue to follow their Methods while He or she thinks Proper.

There are many People who are not of this Society that kill their Children for this Reason — If a Man takes a Wife of inferior rank to himself and has a Child by her it is strangled immediately it is born to prevent its bringing disgrace on the Blood of His Family and tho he wishd to preserve its life himself his relations would oblige him to kill it or declare himself no longer of their Family — and it is the same if the Wife be superior in rank to the Husband both of which frequently happens. If the Child should chance to cry out in Coming into the World, or should the Mother Chance to see it before it is killd, Nature takes place of Custom and the Child is Saved.

Such was the Case with the present Tomaree, the only Child which Pbooraya Saved; being delivered by herself she saved the Child tho she had killd several others, both Her and Oammo being of the Areeuoy society; for which reason he left Herbut they afterwards became friends & the Boy was acknowledged their Heir.

And here it May not be improper to remark that the Idea formd of this Society and of the Inhabitants of this Island in general by former Voyagers could not possible extend much further then their own Oppinion, None having remaind a sufficient length of time to know the Manner in which they live and as their whole system was overturned by the arrival of a ship, their Manners were then as much altered from their Common Course, as those of our own Country are at a Fair, which might as well be given for a specimen of the Method of living in England — and such was always their situation as soon as a ship Arrived their whole thought being turnd toward their Visitors, & all Method tryd to win their Friendship. Mean time they were forced to live in a different way of life that they might the better please their new friends. Their general Notion, of delicacy is undoubtedly different from

Indigenous Histories