Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0190
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[Page 190]
186
Some account of New Zealand
hung to them by strings many very different thing often chissels or bodkins made of a kind of Green talk which they value much, the nails & teeth also of their deceasd relations, dogs teeth, also & in short every thing they could get which was either valuable or ornamental. besides these the Women wore sometimes Bracelets & anclets made of the Bones of Birds, shells, &c. & the men often had the figure of a distorted man made of the beforementiond green talk, or the tooth of a whale cut slauntwise, so as something to resemble a tongue, & furnishd with two eyes; which these they wore about their necks & seemd to Value almost above every thing else. I saw one instance also of a very extrordinary ornament, which was a feather stuck through the bridge of the nose and projecting on each side of it over the cheeks; but this I only mention as a singular thing, having seen met with it only once among the many people I have seen, & never observd in any other even the marks of a ny hole which might occasionaly serve for such a purpose.
their houses are certainly the most inartificialy made of any thing among them scarce equal to