520 CAPTAIN cook’s FIRST VOYAGE.

and fhooting with the bow, or throwing a lance, conftitute a chief part of theirdiverfions.

Flutes, which have r been mentioned before, and drums, are the only mufical inftru-ments among them; their drums are formed of a circular piece of wood, hollow at oneend only, which is covered with the {kin of a {hark, and they are beaten with thehand inftead of a ftick. Their fongs are extempore, and frequently in rhyme, butconfift of only two lines.

Among their other amufements they have a dance named Timorodee, which is per-formed by ten or a dozen young females, who put themfelves into the mod wantonattitudes that can polfibly be imagined, keeping time during the performance withthe greateft nicety and exaCtnefs ; from thefe dances the women are immediately ex-cluded on their becoming pregnant.

Many of the principal people of this ifland, of each fex, have united into an aflo-ciation, in which no woman confines her favours to any particular man ; in this mannerthey obtain a perpetual variety, no one objeCt ever gratifying them but a few days.

The focieties are named Arreoy, the members of which have meetings where themen amufe themfelves by wreftling; and notwithflanding the frequent intercourfewhich the women have with a variety of men, they dance the Timorodee in fuch amanner as they imagine will moll excite the defires of the male fex, and which areoften gratified upon the fpot. There are much worfe practices. In cafe any of thewomen prove with child, which in this manner of life feldom happens, they deftroy thehelplefs infant as foon as it is brought into the world, that it may not be a burden tothe father, nor interrupt the mother in the purfuit of her lafcivious amufements.Natural affection, however, for the child, fometimes happily produces a reformationin the mother; but when this happens the child’s life is always forfeited, unlefs themother can procure a man to adopt it as his child, in which cafe this inhuman murderis prevented; but both the man and woman are for ever expelled the fociety. Thewoman being particularized by the appellation of Whannownow, “ bearer of children,which among thefe people, is confidered as a term of the greateft reproach.

Their perfonal cleanlinefs is an object that merits peculiar attention. Both fexesnever omit to wafh with water three times a day ; when they rife, at noon, and be for®they go to reft. They alfo keep their clothes extremely clean ; fo that in the largelycommunities no difagreeable effluvia ever arifes, [nor is there any other inconveniencethan heat.

The chief manufacture of Otaheite is cloth; of this cloth there are three differentforts, which are made of the bark of as many different trees, viz. the mulberry, thebread-fruit, and a tree not very unlike the wild fig-tree, which is found in fome parts orthe Weft-Indies. The mulberry-tree, which the Indians call Aouta, produces the _h ne ,cloth, which is feldom worn but by thofe of the firft rank. The next fort, which isworn by the lower clafs of people, is made of the bread-fruit tree, and the coarfeft othe tree refembling the fig-tree. This laft fort, though more ufeful than the twoformer, on account of its keeping out water, which neither of the others will* isexceedingly fcarce, being manufactured but in fmall quantities.

The cloth becomes exceedingly white by bleaching, and is died of a red, yellow*brown, or black colour j the firft of which is exceedingly beautiful, and equal, ft 110fuperior, to any in Europe . .

Matting of various kinds is another confiderable manufacture, in which they ex ^ e .^in many refpeCts, the Europeans . They make ufe of the coarfer fort to fleep on, andwet weather they wear the finer. y