Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 - No. 0395
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[Page 395]
Manners & Customs of the S. Sea Islands
more addicted to than their superiors their hair is almost universaly black & rather coarse this the women wear always cropt short round their ears the men on the other hand wear it in many various ways sometimes cropping it short sometimes letting grow very long & tying it at the top of their heads or letting it hang loose on their shoulders &c. Their beards they also wear in many different fashions always however plucking out a large part of them & keeping that that is left very clean & neat both sexes eradicate every hair from under their armpits & they look upon it as a great mark of uncleanliness in us that we did not do the same
During our stay in these Islands I saw some not more than 5 or 6 who were a total exception to all I have said before They were whiter even than us but of a dead Colour like that of the nose of a white horse their eyes hair eyebrows & beards were also white they were universaly short sighted & lookd always unwholesome their skins scurfy & scaly & eyes often full of Rheum As they had no two of them any connextions with one another I conclude that the difference of colour &c. was totaly accidental & did not at all run in families
So much for their persons. I shall now mention their method of Painting their bodies