The
skeleton is then taken up, the bones of the extremities scraped and cut
into various forms, to point arrows and spears. Their arms consist of
heavy clubs, spears, and bows and arrows. They poison the latter with a
kind of reddish gum, extracted from a species of tree peculiar to the
island. When any one is struck by a poisoned arrow in any of the limbs,
the part is quickly cut out, and his life is sometimes saved; but if the
wound happens to be in the body, where it cannot be easily excised, he
resigns himself quietly to death without a murmur, though he frequently
lingers for four or five days in excruciating agony.
The Manicolans differ from almost all the other islanders in the South Sea;
they are as black as negroes, have short woolly hair, and resemble them in
their features. Their religion also is different; in every village in the
island there is a house dedicated to the Deity. At the principal chapel,
the skulls of all the people who were killed, belonging to the ship that
grounded at Whanoo, are still preserved.
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