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Melville, Herman

"Typee"

They were evidently reserved for gala days; and during those of the festival they rendered the young islanders who wore them very distinguished characters. The small number who were similarly adorned, and the great value they appeared to place upon the most common and most trivial articles, furnished ample evidence of the very restricted intercourse they held with vessels touching at the island. A few cotton handkerchiefs of a gay pattern, tied about the neck, and suffered to fall over the shoulders, strips of fanciful calico, swathed about the loins, were nearly all I saw.


? ? ? ? Indeed, throughout the valley, there were few things of any kind to be seen of European origin. All I ever saw, besides the articles just alluded to, were the six muskets preserved in the Ti, and three or four similar implements of warfare hung up in other houses, some small canvas bags, partly filled with bullets and powder, and half a dozen old hatchet-heads, with the edges blunted and battered to such a degree as to render them utterly worthless. These last seemed to be regarded as nearly worthless by the natives; and several times they held up one of them before me, and throwing it aside with a gesture of disgust, manifested their contempt for anything that could so soon become unserviceable.


? ? ? ? But the muskets, the powder, and the bullets, were held in most extravagant esteem.


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