Revised Jun 19 2021
The School.
School hours are from 7 A.M. to 2 P.M., excepting Saturday, which is a sort of holyday to collect provisions, &c., for Sunday. When a vessel calls at the island, there is a general holyday, as every one is employed in collecting refreshments, &c., &c., for her. They seldom go off to a whaling vessel in a boat—using a canoe generally; but when an English vessel appears in sight, a boat goes off to her as soon as she is within a reason able distance of the settlement. Reading, writing, geography, mathematics, &c., &c., are taught. Every child must be able to repeat the alphabet, Lord’s Prayer, and Belief, before he goes to school. There are now about fifty scholars, some of whom have made very great progress. The writing of some, in particular, was equal to that which might be met with in any merchant’s office in London. Many of them attend school until they are married, and some even afterwards. School is a great delight to the young people; they appear to be anxious to learn everything which they think will be of any service at all to them. I have often been much surprised to find many of them make use of words and sentences of which I little thought they could have known the meaning. Mr. Nobbs is schoolmaster, and receives one shilling per month for each pupil, which is generally paid in food by their parents; but, should he think proper to hire the parents for his garden, either in taking up or putting in crops, they are obliged to attend his call, at the rate of two shillings per diem. Mr. Nobbs is also the medical man of the island and those families which he attends during the year, generally make him a present of different articles of food.
There is a piece of ground on the first ridge, near the landing place, among a grove of Cocoa-nut trees, which has been set out as a market-place. To this, on the arrival of any vessel, the provisions that she may require are brought—Mr. Nobbs taking an account of what each family contributes. As all are entitled to share alike in the benefit of trade, no one is suffered to bring more than his proportion of the gross quantity required. There is a small house upon the ground, where the different articles of trade from the vessel are deposited, in case of wet weather. As soon as the order of the vessel is made up, everything is then carried down to the landing-place, to high-water mark; it is then considered in the captain’s charge, who either takes it off in his own boat, or gives the islanders compensation for the use of theirs.
Their system of agriculture is as primitive as are their manners. Totally unversed in the mysteries of subsoil ploughing, and ignorant of the virtues of guano all their field-work is performed with the hoe; by the use of which, however, and by not sparing their own labour, they contrive to raise abundant crops of food, previously mentioned. I observed many patches of the tobacco plant; but they do not well understand the art of curing the leaf. There is a common wooden sugar-mill upon the island, but of an inferior description. The largest quantity of sugar ever made at one time, has been six cwt. They prefer making molasses to sugar, as they can make it go much further in their food, more especially among their children. The cane does not grow very large, and is but little cultivated, on account of the immense number of rats upon the island, which do great damage amongst the canes.
Fish are not very numerous; but whenever the weather is fine, they seldom lose the chance of going out to catch them. The largest are a sort of cod, some of which are very fine eating. There is the red snapper, and a few other smaller sorts; the latter are caught near the shore, in shallow water; but the former they fish for in 100 to 200 fathoms, about one and a half or two miles from shore. They make their own fishing-lines, which they much prefer to ours; their own not being so liable to twist in deep water, which is the case with our lines in deep water, our lines being laid up too tightly. They make their lines of sail-twine, and purchase it whenever they get the chance of doing so. Crawfish are numerous at certain seasons, which they procure by diving for them a few feet under water, alongside the rocks. There are but few eatable shell-fish.
Their domestic animals are in reality a loss to them, the quantity of food they supply being so small compared to what they consume; a consideration of great importance, when they are, for the most part, obliged to be kept up and fed upon the prooduce of cultivated land A few of the goats are allowed to run loose upon some parts of the island; the number which each family is allowed to keep at one time, being proportioned to the number of its members, but it must never exceed nine. Those which run loose are generally female goats; the males being kept up at home, and fed three or four times a day, until two years old, when they are killed, or sold to the shipping. The females are always brought home a few days before kidding, after which they are again turned out until the kids are from three to four months old, when they again brought home and marked; when the female kids and their mother are again turned out, and the males kept at home. The goats generally remain near the place where they were first turned out, which is accordingly selected as far as possible from the settlement and plantations.
Pigs are fed much in the same manner as the goats, which makes them very expensive to rear; what few they have, they do not care to sell, as they are ashamed to ask a remunerating price for what they have actually cost in labour and potatoes. Each family generally kills a large hog when the yam digging commences, as they are then obliged to work very hard. They eat animal food, generally speaking, very sparingly, except at this season. Mr. Nobbs informed me, that by the time a large hog (300 lb. weight) was fit to kill, at this season, it usually ate about thirty barrels of potatoes, which, at 8s. a barrel, would be £12; it need therefore be a matter of no surprise that they cannot afford to sell them at a reasonable price.
Fowls are small, but are bred in large numbers, and with few exceptions, at some distance from the settlement, on account of the great destruction they make amongst the gardens in the settlement; they also do much mischief to the banana and plantain trees, into which they fly and eat the fruit as soon as ripe; against this there is no remedy. The large breed of fowl which is now reared in New Zealand—the chittagong or jungle, or, as most people there erroneously call them, the Malay fowl—would be of great value to them, as they are too heavy to fly aloft into the trees. Any vessel that may call and have such kind on board, would confer a great benefit upon the islanders by making a fair exchange.
Their rabbits will, I fear, some day be a great nuisance to them, there being no hawk or other enemies to keep them under when once they get out into the bush, where they most assuredly will without much care be taken to keep them in confinement, which at present does not appear to be the case.
The dwelling-houses are from forty to fifty feet long, about thirteen feet high, and fifteen feet wide. There is no glass upon the island, except one small window, which came out of the Bounty, and which is in Mr. Nobbs’s house. The windows, more like the portholes of a ship, go all round the houses, and are closed in bad weather with sliding shutters. One end of the house, about ten feet long is portioned off, as the sleeping apartment for the head of the family and his wife. Sometimes the other end is likewise cut off; when this is the case, it is generally occupied by one of the married children and family, who often still reside with the old people for some time. The whole side of the house, opposite the door-way, is fitted up with sleeping-berths, raised about three feet from the ground, for the rest of the family, each bed place having its own window fitted like those in front. No house has any fireplace in it; the thermometer ranging from 55° to 85°.
Their cook-houses for preparing their food, are always detached from their dwellings. They follow the fashion of the other South Sea islanders, forming ovens with hot stones in the ground. There are but few saucepans; but they are used for many purposes, when they can be obtained. They sometimes use ovens similar to our own, but very seldom. These are made of large flat stones, which are banked up with earth a foot wide, which earth is encased by another outside square of similar stones, so that the heat is most effectually kept in. Their food is chiefly fruit and vegetables; fish when they can procure it, and sometimes goats, which they shoot in the mountains. They are cleanly in their cooking, and take much trouble over it.
They are very ingenious cabinet-makers, making neat workboxes and dressing-cases, of a reddish streaked wood, the same as that with which they build their houses, very handsome, and rather lighter then rosewood in colour; many of them being inlaid with a yellowish wood, which gives them a handsome appearance, they sell readily for 20s. to 80s. each, to parties who visit the island They also make very handsome walking-canes of the same wood, as well as of the cocoa-nut and palm trees. The women make hats and baskets from the leaves of this same palm (the Pandanus), which leaves are likewise used in thatching their houses. They sell as many of all the above as they can make, every person coming on shore wishing to carry away some memorial from this interesting island
The population of the island is, males, seventy-seven; females, seventy-nine; making a total of one hundred and fifty-six. There are twenty married couple; fifteen males unmarried, between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, and eleven females between the same ages; one widow, Susannah, a Tahitian, who came in the Bounty (Young’s widow, who cut off the Tahitian’s head, Tetihito, when he was asleep). There is only one instance of twins, one of whom I saw married. The great drawback to the women not marrying more than they do, is chiefly on account of the extra work which falls upon them; and also, as many of them told me, on account of there not being enough land on the island to support their families. Hard times, indeed!
The women generally wear a petticoat from the hip downwards, and over that a loose gown, often with a handkerchief thrown loose]y over their shoulders. A wreath of flowers round the head denotes their being unmarried. Their hair is worn in bands, with what was, to my eye, an incomprehensible knot. The men always wear short trousers, the legs of which are cut off about six inches above the knee. A shirt, and a cap or hat, complete their costume. On Sunday the men and women are very particular about their dress, which particularity was even extended to ourselves, for they sent us white shirts (we generally wore coloured ones), requesting we would put them on to go to church in. Children generally run about until they are two years old, in a state of nature.
The men are, generally speaking, well formed and muscular, standing rather above the usual height. The women are neither tall nor short, but inclined to be rather stout, with a fine skin; some of them very fair, while others are as dark as Spaniards. Both men and women have fine teeth, especially the latter. The children come very early to the use of their limbs. I have seen one of these little imps walking about at the age of ten months, and was assured that he had been able to walk two months previously.
Quarrels and swearing are unknown amongst these islanders, who are as one large family bred up together; they are, in point of fact, all more or less related to each other, and look upon each other more as brothers and sisters than any thing else. The children appear to be more nursed by their relations than by their mothers, which makes it difficult to distinguish the married from the unmarried.
Whenever any passenger, captain, or boat’s crew remain on shore all night, each individual is received into a different house for the night—an excellent plan, as the stranger can then be closely watched (how sad that surveillance should be ever needed to keep them out of mischief!); while far more information is obtained from them, than if they were lodged in a body, in which case only one would be able to speak at a time, and the contributions of the rest to the common stock of knowledge would be lost. The islanders generally take it in turns to entertain strangers, it being looked upon as a privilege rather than a troublesome duty.