Revised Jun 19 2021
There is no doubt but that this island was formerly inhabited, although the native race must have been extinct many years prior to the arrival of the Bounty. Burial-places are still to be seen, and large, flat, hewn stones in different parts of the island, which must have been for pavement in front of their houses, such as are in use among other tribes in the South Seas. These stones, when observed by the crew of the Bounty, had very large trees growing up among them, by which in many places they bad been displaced. Stone images were likewise found, supposed to have been objects of worship; they were made of a hardish coarse red stone. Stone spearheads and small axes are very common; and round stone balls, of about two pounds’ weight, some of which are generally found when working up new ground, all of which are made of a bluish black stone, very fine grained and smooth. The spots where the images and stoneware were made, may be recognised by the large accumulation of chips in various parts of the island Human bones have been repeatedly found, although not during the last eight years; and, in one instance, a perfect skeleton was discovered, in the last state of decay, with a large pearl shell, of a sort not belonging to the island, under the skull.
This is a custom with the natives of the Gambier Islands, Bow Island, High Island, Toubouai, and nearly all the Pumutu or Low Islands. The cocoa-nut trees, bananas, plantains, and breadfruit trees, as well as the yams and sweet potatoes, found here by the crew of the Bounty, are an additional sign of the previous occupation of the island, more especially as they were confined to one single spot. It is very unlikely that these plants should have been indigenous so far to the southward, as they will not grow upon every part of the island, but merely upon a few of the warmest spots or situations on the lower ridges. These aborigines were most probably drifted here upon a raft, it having been a custom, many years ago, especially at the Gambier Islands, which are to the W.N.W., about three hundred miles from Pitcairn’s Island, and of many of the Low Islands, to put those who were vanquished in war upon rafts, when the wind was off the land, sending them adrift to whatever place they could fetch. Two actual instances of this practice were mentioned to me by Mr. Nobbs; one came under his cognisance while he himself was at the Gambier group.
There is an island, about sixty miles to the E.S.E. of Gambier Island, called Crescent Island, to which Mr. Nobbs and Captain Abriel, in the American schooner Olivia, and Captain Cornish, in the Olive Branch, paid a visit in 1836, having heard that pearl-shell was to be found there in great abundance. On lauding, they were much surprised at finding about forty natives living upon it, although unknown to the natives of the Gambier Islands. There being a few of the Gambier islanders on board of the Olive Branch, the party was enabled to communicate with these people, who told them that their prior generation, who were then all dead, had been put upon a raft and sent to sea, having been worsted in a battle at the Gambier Islands; and that after drifting upon the ocean for several days, they were cast on shore where hey were now found. After remaining upon the island for two days, Mr. Nobbs’s party returned to the Gambier Islands, taking with them a few of the Crescent Islanders. On their arrival at the Gambler group, the natives of that group, hearing of the strangers, a great meeting was held, when it was ascertained that the account which had been rendered was perfectly correct.
The next day some of the Gambier group chiefs hired Captain Abriel's launch, giving him in payment four tons of Too (Breadfruit put under ground, after being cut up and left there to ferment) This was much required by Captain Abriel, who had a party of natives fishing for pearl shells, as food for his divers. The launch started, and in a few days returned again with all the Crescent islanders on board. Upon their landing, the Gambier islanders gave them a grand feast, of which the guests partook so plentifully, that some of them actually died from repletion. In the other instance mentioned by Mr. Nobbs, the beaten party, likewise from the Gambier Islands, reached an inhabited island, called Rapa or Opazo, about 700 miles S.S.E.. of Tahiti, or 600 miles S.W. from the Gambier Islands. The last of these refugees died about six years ago.