of the priest. The method of cure that is practifed by the priests of Otaheite, confifts chiefly of prayers and ceremonies. When he vifits his patient he repeats certain fentences, which appear to be fet forms contrived for the occafion, and at the fame time plaits the leaves of the cocoanut into different figures very neatly; fome of these he fastens to the fingers and toes of the fick, and often leaves behind him a few branches of the thefpecia populnea, which they call E'midho: these ceremonies are repeated till the patient recovers or dies. If he recovers, they say the remedies cured him, if he dies, they say the dif ease was incurable, in which perhaps they do not much differ from the custom of other countries.

If we had judged of their skill in furgery from the dreadful scars which we fometimes faw, we should have supposed it to be much fuperior to the art not only of their physicians, but of ours. We saw one man whose face was almost entirely destroyed, his nofe, including the bone, was perfectly flat, and one cheek and one eye were fo beaten in, that the hollow would almoft receive a man's fift, yet no ulcer remained; and our companion, Tupia, had been pierced quite through his body by a fpear headed with the bone of the fting-ray, the weapon having entered his back, and come out juft under his breaft; but except in reducing dislocations and fractures, VOL. III.

G

the

1769.

1769. the best furgeon can contribute very little to the cure of a wound; the blood itfelf is the best vulnerary balsam, and when the juices of the body are pure, and the patient is temperate, nothing more is neceffary as an aid to Nature in the cure of the worst wound, than the keeping it clean.

Their commerce with the inhabitants of Europe has, however, already entailed upon them that dreadful curfe which avenged the inhumanities committed by the Spaniards in America, the venereal disease. As it is certain that no European veffel befides our own, except the Dolphin, and the two that were under the command of Monf. Bougainville, ever vifited this island, it must have been brought either by one of them or by us. That it was not brought by the Dolphin, Captain Wallis has demonstrated in the account of her voyage, [Vol. I. p. 323, 324.] and nothing is more certain than that when we arrived, it had made most dreadful ravages in the island. One of our people contracted it within five days after we went on fhore, and by the inquiries among the natives, which this occafioned, we learnt, when we came to underftand a little of their language, that it had been brought by the veffels which had been there about fifteen months before us, and had lain on the caft fide of the island. They diftinguished it by a name of the fame import with rottennefs,

but

1

but of a more extenfive fignification, and described, in the most pathetic terms, the sufferings of the first victims to its rage, and told us that it caused the hair and the nails to fall off, and the flesh to rot from the bones; that it spread a univerfal terror and confternation among them, fo that the fick were abandoned by their nearest relations, left the calamity fhould fpread by contagion, and left to perifh alone in fuch mifery as till then had never been known among them, We had fome reafon, however, to hope that they had found out a fpecific to cure it: during our stay upon the inland we faw none in whom it had made a great progrefs, and one who went from us infected, returned after a fhort time in perfect health; and by this it appeared either that the disease had cured itself, or that they were not unacquainted with the virtues of fimples, nor implicit dupes to the fuperftitious follies of their priests. We endeavoured to learn the medical qualities which they imputed to their plants, but our knowledge of their language was too imperfect for us to fucceed. If we could have learnt their specific for the venereal disease, if fuch they have, it would have been of great advantage to us, for when we left the inland it had been contracted by more than half the people on board the ship.

It is impoffible but that, in relating incidents, many particulars with refpect to the customs, opinions,

G 2

1769.

opinions, and works of these people fhould be
anticipated; to avoid repetition therefore, I
fhall only supply deficiencies. Of the manner
of difpofing of their dead, much has been faid
already. I muft more explicitly obferve, that
there are two places in which the dead are de
posited; one a kind of shed, where the flesh
is fuffered to putrefy; the other an enclosure,
with erections of stone, where the bones are af
terwards buried. The fheds are called TUPA
The Morais

row, and the enclofures MORAI.
are alfo places of worship.

As foon as a native of Otaheite is known to be dead, the house is filled with relations, who deplore their lofs, fome by loud lamentations, and fome by lefs clamorous, but more genuine expreffions of grief. Those who are in the nearest degree of kindred, and are really affected by the event, are filent; the reft are one moment uttering paffionate exclamations in a chorus, and the next laughing and talking without the leaft appearance of concern. In this manner the remainder of the day on which they affemble is spent, and all the fucceed ing night. On the next morning the body is fhrouded in their cloth, and conveyed to the fea fide upon a bier, which the bearers fupport upon their shoulders, attended by the priest, who having prayed over the body, repeats his fentences during the proceffion: when it arrives

at

at the water's edge, it is fet down upon the beach; the priest renews his prayers, and taking up fome of the water in his hands, fprinkles it towards the body, but not upon it. It is then carried back forty or fifty yards, and foon after brought again to the beach, where the prayers and fprinkling are repeated: it is thus removed backwards and forwards several times, and while thefe ceremonies have been performing a house has been built, and a small space of ground railed in. In the centre of this houfe, or Tupapow, pofts are fet up to fupport the bier, which is at length conveyed thither, and placed upon it, and here the body remains to putrify till the flesh is wholly wafted from the bones.

These houses of corruption are of a fize proportioned to the rank of the person whose body they are to contain; those allotted to the lower class are just sufficient to cover the bier, and have no railing round them. The largest we ever faw was eleven yards long, and such as these are ornamented according to the abilities and inclination of the furviving kindred, who never fail to lay a profufion of good cloth about the body, and sometimes almost cover the outside of the house. Garlands of the fruit of the palmnut or pandanus, and cocoa leaves, twisted by the priests in mysterious knots, with a plant called by them Ethee no Morai, which is particularly confecrated to funereal folemnities, are depofit

1769.