Joseph Banks - Endeavour Journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 - No. 0338
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[Page 338]
Otahite
like those of Oboreonoo raisd into the form of the roof of a house but these were cleaner & better kept & also ornamented with many carvd boards set upright on the tops of which were various figures of birds & men on one particularly a figure of a cock painted red & yellow in imitation of the feathers of that bird in some of them were figures of men standing on each others heads which they told me was the particular ornament of Burying grounds - but fertile as this countrey was we did no get or even see a single breadfruit the trees were intirely bared the people seemd to live intirely on Ahee Fagifera which were plentifull here
After tiring ourselves with walking we calld up the boat but both our Indians were missing they had it seems staid behind at Waheatuas depending upon a promise we had made to the old man of returning & sleeping with him (a promise we were often forcd to make without any intention of performing it) Tearee & another went with us we rowd till we came abreast a small Island calld Tuarrite when it became dark & our Indians piloted us ashore to a place where they said that we might sleep it was a deserted house & near it was a very snug cove for the boat to lay so we wanted nothing but Victuals of which article we had met with very little since morning I went into the woods it was quite dark so that neither people nor victuals could I find except one house where I was furnishd with fire a breadfruit & a half & a few ahees with which & a duck or 2 & a few curlews we