Note (return) — Chapter III · TRANSACTIONS AT OTAHEITE, AND THE SOCIETY ISLANDS; AND PROSECUTION OF THE VOYAGE TO THE COAST OF NORTH AMERICA.

Otoo was not more attentive to supply our wants, by a succession of presents, than he was to contribute to our amusement, by a succession of diversions. A party of us having gone down to Oparre on the 10th, he treated us with what may be called a play. His three sisters were the actresses; and the dresses that they appeared in were new and elegant; that is, more so than we had usually met with at any of these islands. But the principal object I had in view, this day, in going to Oparre, was to take a view of an embalmed corpse, which some of our gentlemen had happened to meet with at that place, near the residence of Otoo. On enquiry, I found it to be the remains of Tee, a chief well known to me when I was at this island during my last voyage. It was lying in a toopapaoo, more elegantly constructed than their common ones, and in all respects similar to that lately seen by us at Oheitepeha, in which the remains of Waheiadooa are deposited, embalmed in the same manner. When we arrived at the place, the body was under cover, and wrapped up in cloth within the toopapaoo; but, at my desire, the man who had the care of it, brought it out, and laid it upon a kind of bier, in such a manner, that we had as full a view of it as we could wish; but we were not allowed to go within the pales that enclosed the toopapaoo. After he had thus exhibited the corpse, he hung the place with mats and cloth, so disposed as to produce a very pretty effect. We found the body not only entire in every part; but, what surprised us much more, was, that putrefaction seemed scarcely to be begun, as there was not the least disagreeable smell proceeding from it; though the climate is one of the hottest, and Tee had been dead above four months. The only remarkable alteration that had happened, was a shrinking of the muscular parts and eyes; but the hair and nails were in their original state, and still adhered firmly; and the several joints were quite pliable, or in that kind of relaxed state which happens to persons who faint suddenly. Such were Mr Anderson's remarks to me, who also told me, that on his enquiring into the method of effecting this preservation of their dead bodies, he had been informed, that, soon after their death, they are disembowlled, by drawing the intestines, and other viscera, out at the anus; and the whole cavity is then filled or stuffed with cloth, introduced through the same part; that when any moisture appeared on the skin, it was carefully dried up, and the bodies afterward rubbed all over with a large quantity of perfumed cocoa-nut oil; which, being frequently repeated, preserved them a great many months; but that, at last, they gradually moulder away. This was the information Mr Anderson received; for my own part, I could not learn any more about their mode of operation than what Omai told me, who said, that they made use of the juice of a plant which grows amongst the mountains, of cocoa-nut oil, and of frequent washing with sea-water. I was also told, that the bodies of all their great men, who die a natural death, are preserved in this manner; and that they expose them to public view for a very considerable time after. At first, they are laid out every day, when it does not rain; afterward, the intervals become greater and greater; and, at last, they are seldom to be seen.1