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[Page 434]

Manners & Customs of the S. Sea Islanders

not adhering together as well as others it looks ragged, & is also of various thicknesses, wherever any faults were in the Cloth from whence it was made; to remedy this is the business of the mistress of the family & principal women of it; who in this, & dying; seem to amuse themselves, as our English women do in making Caps, ruffles, &c; & in this they spend the greatest part of their time. They are furnishd with each a kife, made of a peice of Bamboo cane, to which they make by splitting it diagonally with their nails, an edge; which with great ease cuts any kind of cloth or any soft substance; & a certain quantity of a Paste, made of the root of a Plant which serves them also for food, & is calld by them Pea (Chaitaea Tacca): with the former they cut off any ragged edges or ends, which may not have been sufficiently fixd down by the Beating; & with the Paste, they fasten down others, which are less ragged, & also put on patches, upon any part which may be thinner than the rest, generaly finishing their work, if intended for the best, by applying pasting a compleat covering of the finest thin Cloth or Hoboo over the whole. They make the thick Cloth also, sometimes, of thin, only
 

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