by the tribe to whom they belong, and who probably administer justice to them, though we never saw an instance of it, except in the case of theft on board the ship, when upon our complaint the offender received kicks and blows from the chief with whom he came on board.
These chiefs were generally old men: whether they had the office of chief by birth or on account of their age, we never learnt; but in the other parts, where Teratu was not acknowledged, we plainly learnt that the chiefs whom they obeyed, of which every tribe had some, received their dignity by inheritance. In the northern parts their societies seemed to have many things in common, particularly their fine clothes and nets; of the former they had but few, and we never saw anybody employed in making them. It might be that what they had were the spoils of war. They were kept in a small hut erected for that purpose in the middle of the town. The latter seemed to be the joint work of the whole society. Every house had in it pieces of netting upon which they were engaged; by joining these together it is probable that they made the large seines which we saw.
The women are less regarded here than in the South Sea Islands, so, at least, thought Tupia, who complained of it as an insult upon the sex. They eat with the men, however. How the sexes divide labour I do not know, but I am inclined to believe that the men till the ground, fish in boats, make nets, and take birds, while the women dig up fern roots, collect shell-fish and lobsters near the beach, dress the victuals, and weave cloth. Thus, at least, have these employments been distributed, when I had an opportunity of observing them, which was very seldom; for our approach generally made a holiday wherever we went, men, women, and children flocking to us either to satisfy their curiosity or trade with us for whatever they might have. They took in exchange cloth of any kind, especially linen or the Indian cloth we had brought from the islands, paper, glass bottles, sometimes pieces of broken glass, nails, etc.
We saw few or no signs of religion among these people; they had no public places of worship, as the inhabitants of
