1773.
April.
parrot's feathers, and presented the captain with a piece of green nephritic stone, or jadde[1], which was formed into the blade of a hatchet. Before he stepped on the bridge, he turned aside, put a piece of a bird's skin with white feathers through the hole in one of his ears, and broke off a small green branch from a neighbouring bush. With this he walked on, and stopping when he could just reach the ship's sides with his hand, struck them and the main-shrouds several times with his branch. He then began to repeat a kind of speech or prayer, which seemed to have regular cadences, and to be metrically arranged as a poem; his eyes were fixed upon the place he had touched, his voice was raised, and his whole behaviour grave and solemn. The young woman, though at other times laughing and dancing, now kept close to the man and was serious all the while he spoke, which lasted about two or three minutes; at the close of his speech he struck the ship's side again, threw the branch into the main chains, and came aboard. This manner of delivering solemn orations, and making peace, is practised by all the nations which have been seen in the South Sea before our voyage, as appears from the testimonies of various voyagers. Both the man and woman had a spear in their hands when they were conducted on the quarter-deck; there they admired every thing they saw: a few geese
- ↑ See Hawkesworth, vol. II. p. 286.
in
