Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0183
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[Page 183]
179.
Some account of New Zealand
indented and most perfectly black this may be done to make them look frightfull in war at least indeed it has the Effect of making them most enormously ugly the old ones at least whose faces are intirely coverd with it the young again often have a small patch on one cheek or over an eye & those under a certain age (may be 25 or 26 have no more than their lips black yet ugly as this certainly looks it is impossible to avoid admiring the immence Elegance & Justness of the figures in which it is formd which in the face is always different spirals upon the body generaly different figures resembling something the foliages of old Chasing upon gold or silver all these executed finishd with a masterly taste & execution for of a hundred which at first sight you would judge to be exactly the same on a close examination no two will prove alike nor do I remember to have seen any two alike for their wild imaginations scorn to copy as appears in almost all their works - in different parts of the coast they varied very much in the quantity & parts of the body on which this Amoco as they call it was placd but in the spirals upon their faces they generaly agreed & I have generaly