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Mutiny on the Bounty

Sir John Barrow

The food of the natives, being chiefly vegetable, consists of the
various preparations of the bread-fruit, of cocoa-nuts, bananas,
plantains, and a great variety of other fruit, the spontaneous products
of a rich soil and genial climate. The bread-fruit, when baked in the
same manner as the dog was, is rendered soft, and not unlike a boiled
potato; not quite so farinaceous as a good one, but more so than those
of the middling sort. Much of this fruit is gathered before it is ripe,
and by a certain process is made to undergo the two states of
fermentation, the saccharine and acetous, in the latter of which it is
moulded into balls, and called _Mahie_. The natives seldom make a meal
without this sour paste. Salt water is the universal sauce, without
which no meal is eaten. Their drink in general consists of water, or the
juice of the cocoa-nut; the art of producing liquors that intoxicate by
fermentation being at this time happily unknown among them; neither did
they make use of any narcotic, as the natives of some other countries do
opium, beetel-nut, and tobacco. One day the wife of one of the chiefs
came running to Mr. Banks, who was always applied to in every emergency
and distress, and with a mixture of grief and terror in her countenance,
made him understand that her husband was dying, in consequence of
something the strangers had given him to eat. Mr. Banks found his friend
leaning his head against a post, in an attitude of the utmost languor
and despondency. His attendants brought out a leaf folded up with great
care, containing part of the poison of the effects of which their master
was now dying. On opening the leaf Mr. Banks found in it a chew of
tobacco, which the chief had asked from some of the seamen, and
imitating them, as he thought, he had rolled it about in his mouth,
grinding it to powder with his teeth, and ultimately swallowing it.
During the examination of the leaf he looked up at Mr. Banks with the
most piteous countenance, and intimated that he had but a very short
time to live. A copious draught of cocoa-nut milk, however, set all to
rights, and the chief and his attendants were at once restored to that
flow of cheerfulness and good-humour, which is the characteristic of
these single-minded people.

There is, however, one plant from the root of which they extract a juice
of an intoxicating quality, called _Ava_, but Cook's party saw nothing
of its effects, probably owing to their considering drunkenness as a
disgrace. This vice of drinking ava is said to be peculiar almost to the
chiefs, who vie with each other in drinking the greatest number of
draughts, each draught being about a pint. They keep this intoxicating
juice with great care from the women.

As eating is one of the most important concerns of life, here as well as
elsewhere, Captain Cook's description of a meal made by one of the
chiefs of the island cannot be considered as uninteresting, and is here
given in his own words.

'He sits down under the shade of the next tree, or on the shady side of
his house, and a large quantity of leaves, either of the bread-fruit or
bananas, are neatly spread before him upon the ground as a table-cloth;
a basket is then set by him that contains his provision, which, if fish
or flesh, is ready dressed, and wrapped up in leaves, and two cocoa-nut
shells, one full of salt water and one of fresh. His attendants, which
are not few, seat themselves round him, and when all is ready, he begins
by washing his hands and his mouth thoroughly with the fresh water, and
this he repeats almost continually throughout the whole meal. He then
takes part of his provision out of the basket, which generally consists
of a small fish or two, two or three bread-fruits, fourteen or fifteen
ripe bananas, or six or seven apples. He first takes half a bread-fruit,
peels off the rind, and takes out the core with his nails; of this he
puts as much into his mouth as it can hold, and while he chews it, takes
the fish out of the leaves and breaks one of them into the salt water,
placing the other, and what remains of the bread-fruit, upon the leaves
that have been spread before him. When this is done, he takes up a small
piece of the fish that has been broken into the salt-water, with all the
fingers of one hand, and sucks it into his mouth, so as to get with it
as much of the salt-water as possible. In the same manner he takes the
rest by different morsels, and between each, at least very frequently,
takes a small sup of the salt-water, either out of the cocoa-nut shell,
or the palm of his hand. In the meantime one of his attendants has
prepared a young cocoa-nut, by peeling off the outer rind with his
teeth, an operation which to an European appears very surprising; but it
depends so much upon sleight, that many of us were able to do it before
we left the island, and some that could scarcely crack a filbert. The
master when he chooses to drink takes the cocoa-nut thus prepared, and
boring a hole through the shell with his fingers, or breaking it with a
stone, he sucks out the liquor. When he has eaten his bread-fruit and
fish, he begins with his plantains, one of which makes but a mouthful,
though it be as big as a black-pudding; if instead of plantains he has
apples, he never tastes them till they have been pared; to do this a
shell is picked up from the ground, where they are always in plenty, and
tossed to him by an attendant. He immediately begins to cut or scrape
off the rind, but so awkwardly that great part of the fruit is wasted.
If, instead of fish, he has flesh, he must have some succedaneum for a
knife to divide it; and for this purpose a piece of bamboo is tossed to
him, of which he makes the necessary implement by splitting it
transversely with his nail. While all this has been doing, some of his
attendants have been employed in beating bread-fruit with a stone pestle
upon a block of wood; by being beaten in this manner, and sprinkled from
time to time with water, it is reduced to the consistence of a soft
paste, and is then put into a vessel somewhat like a butcher's tray, and
either made up alone, or mixed with banana or _mahie_, according to the
taste of the master, by pouring water upon it by degrees and squeezing
it often through the hand. Under this operation it acquires the
consistence of a thick custard, and a large cocoa-nut shell full of it
being set before him, he sips it as we should do a jelly if we had no
spoon to take it from the glass. The meal is then finished by again
washing his hands and his mouth. After which the cocoa-nut shells are
cleaned, and everything that is left is replaced in the basket.'

Captain Cook adds, 'the quantity of food which these people eat at a
meal is prodigious. I have seen one man devour two or three fishes as
big as a perch; three bread-fruits, each bigger than two fists; fourteen
or fifteen plantains or bananas, each of them six or seven inches long,
and four or five round; and near a quart of the pounded bread-fruit,
which is as substantial as the thickest unbaked custard. This is so
extraordinary that I scarcely expect to be believed; and I would not
have related it upon my own single testimony, but Mr. Banks, Dr.
Solander, and most of the other gentlemen have had ocular demonstration
of its truth, and know that I mention them on the occasion.'

The women, who, on other occasions, always mix in the amusements of the
men, who are particularly fond of their society, are wholly excluded
from their meals; nor could the latter be prevailed on to partake of
anything when dining in company on board ship; they said it was not
right: even brothers and sisters have each their separate baskets, and
their provisions are separately prepared; but the English officers and
men, when visiting the young ones at their own houses, frequently ate
out of the same basket and drank out of the same cup, to the horror and
dismay of the older ladies, who were always offended at this liberty;
and if by chance any of the victuals were touched, or even the basket
that contained them, they would throw them away.

In this fine climate houses are almost unnecessary. The minimum range of
the thermometer is about 63 deg., the maximum 85 deg., giving an average of 74 deg..
Their sheds or houses consist generally of a thatched roof raised on
posts, the eaves reaching to within three or four feet of the ground;
the floor is covered with soft hay, over which are laid mats, so that
the whole is one cushion, on which they sit by day and sleep by night.
They eat in the open air, under the shade of the nearest tree. In each
district there is a house erected for general use, much larger than
common, some of them exceeding two hundred feet in length, thirty broad,
and twenty high. The dwelling-houses all stand in the woody belt which
surrounds the island, between the feet of the central mountains and the
sea, each having a very small piece of ground cleared, just enough to
keep the dropping of the trees from the thatch. An Otaheitan wood
consists chiefly of groves of bread-fruit and cocoa-nuts, without
underwood, and intersected in all directions by the paths that lead from
one house to another. 'Nothing,' says Cook, 'can be more grateful than
this shade, in so warm a climate, nor anything more beautiful than these
walks,'

With all the activity they are capable of displaying, and the
sprightliness of their disposition, they are fond of indulging in ease
and indolence. The trees that produce their food are mostly of
spontaneous growth--the bread-fruit, cocoa-nut, bananas of thirteen
sorts, besides plantains; a fruit not unlike an apple, which, when ripe,
is very pleasant; sweet potatoes, yams, and a species of _arum_; the
pandanus, the jambu and the sugar-cane; a variety of plants whose roots
are esculent--these, with many others, are produced with so little
culture, that, as Cook observes, they seem to be exempted from the first
general curse that 'man should eat his bread in the sweat of his brow.'
Then for clothing they have the bark of three different trees, the paper
mulberry, the bread-fruit tree, and a tree which resembles the wild
fig-tree of the West Indies; of these the mulberry only requires to be
cultivated.

In preparing the cloth they display a very considerable degree of
ingenuity. Red and yellow are the two colours most in use for dyeing
their cloth; the red is stated to be exceedingly brilliant and
beautiful, approaching nearest to our full scarlet; it is produced by
the mixture of the juices of two vegetables, neither of which separately
has the least tendency to that hue: one is the _Cordia Sebestina_, the
other a species of _Ficus_; of the former the leaves, of the latter the
fruits yield the juices. The yellow dye is extracted from the bark of
the root of the _Morinda citrifolia_, by scraping and infusing it in
water.

Their matting is exceedingly beautiful, particularly that which is made
from the bark of the _Hibiscus tiliaceus_, and of a species of
_Pandanus_. Others are made of rushes and grass with amazing facility
and dispatch. In the same manner their basket and wicker work are most
ingeniously made; the former in patterns of a thousand different kinds.
Their nets and fishing-lines are strong and neatly made, so are their
fish-hooks of pearl-shell; and their clubs are admirable specimens of
wood-carving.

A people so lively, sprightly, and good-humoured as the Otaheitans are,
must necessarily have their amusements. They are fond of music, such as
is derived from a rude flute and a drum; of dancing, wrestling, shooting
with the bow, and throwing the lance. They exhibit frequent trials of
skill and strength in wrestling; and Cook says it is scarcely possible
for those who are acquainted with the athletic sports of very remote
antiquity, not to remark a rude resemblance of them in a wrestling-match
(which he describes) among the natives of a little island in the midst
of the Pacific Ocean.

But these simple-minded people have their vices, and great ones too.
Chastity is almost unknown among a certain description of women: there
is a detestable society called _Arreoy_, composed, it would seem, of a
particular class, who are supposed to be the chief warriors of the
island. In this society the men and women live in common; and on the
birth of a child it is immediately smothered, that its bringing up may
not interfere with the brutal pleasures of either father or mother.
Another savage practice is that of immolating human beings at the
_Morais_, which serve as temples as well as sepulchres, and yet, by the
report of the missionaries, they entertain a due sense and reverential
awe of the Deity. 'With regard to their worship,' Captain Cook does the
Otaheitans but justice in saying, 'they reproach many who bear the name
of Christians. You see no instances of an Otaheitan drawing near the
Eatooa with carelessness and inattention; he is all devotion; he
approaches the place of worship with reverential awe; uncovers when he
treads on sacred ground; and prays with a fervour that would do honour
to a better profession. He firmly credits the traditions of his
ancestors. None dares dispute the existence of the Deity.' Thieving may
also be reckoned as one of their vices; this, however, is common to all
uncivilized nations, and, it may be added, civilized too. But to judge
them fairly in this respect, we should compare their situation with that
of a more civilized people. A native of Otaheite goes on board a ship
and finds himself in the midst of iron bolts, nails, knives, scattered
about, and is tempted to carry off a few of them. If we could suppose a
ship from El Dorado to arrive in the Thames, and that the custom-house
officers, on boarding her, found themselves in the midst of bolts,
hatchets, chisels, all of solid gold, scattered about the deck, one need
scarcely say what would be likely to happen. If the former found the
temptation irresistible to supply himself with what was essentially
useful--the latter would be as little able to resist that which would
contribute to the indulgence of his avarice or the gratification of his
pleasures, or of both.

Such was the state of this beautiful island and its interesting and
fascinating natives at the time when Captain Wallis first discovered and
Lieutenant Cook shortly afterwards visited it. What they now are, as
described by Captain Beechey, it is lamentable to reflect. All their
usual and innocent amusements have been denounced by the missionaries,
and, in lieu of them, these poor people have been driven to seek for
resources in habits of indolence and apathy: that simplicity of
character, which atoned for many of their faults, has been converted
into cunning and hypocrisy; and drunkenness, poverty, and disease have
thinned the island of its former population to a frightful degree. By a
survey of the first missionaries, and a census of the inhabitants, taken
in 1797, the population was estimated at 16,050 souls; Captain
Waldegrave, in 1830, states it, on the authority of a census also taken
by the missionaries, to amount only to 5000--and there is but too much
reason to ascribe this diminution to praying, psalm-singing, and
dram-drinking.[3]

The island of Otaheite is in shape two circles united by a low and
narrow isthmus. The larger circle is named Otaheite Mooe, and is about
thirty miles in diameter; the lesser, named Tiaraboo, about ten miles in
diameter. A belt of low land, terminating in numerous valleys, ascending
by gentle slopes to the central mountain, which is about seven thousand
feet high, surrounds the larger circle, and the same is the case with
the smaller circle on a proportionate scale. Down these valleys flow
streams and rivulets of clear water, and the most luxuriant and verdant
foliage fills their sides and the hilly ridges that separate them, among
which were once scattered the smiling cottages and little plantations of
the natives. All these are now destroyed, and the remnant of the
population has crept down to the flats and swampy ground on the sea
shore, completely subservient to the seven establishments of
missionaries, who have taken from them what little trade they used to
carry on, to possess themselves of it; who have their warehouses, act as
agents, and monopolize all the cattle on the island--but, in return,
they have given them a new religion and a _parliament (risum teneatis?)_
and reduced them to a state of complete pauperism--and all, as they say,
and probably have so persuaded themselves, for the honour of God, and
the salvation of their souls! How much is such a change brought about by
such conduct to be deprecated! how lamentable is it to reflect, that an
island on which Nature has lavished so many of her bounteous gifts, with
which neither Cyprus nor Cythera, nor the fanciful island of Calypso,
can compete in splendid and luxuriant beauties, should be doomed to such
a fate,--in an enlightened age, and by a people that call themselves
civilized!
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