[Captain Cook’s Journal During the First Voyage Round the World by James Cook]@TWC D-Link bookCaptain Cook’s Journal During the First Voyage Round the World CHAPTER 3 92/116
These mix and Cohabit together with the utmost freedom, and the Chilldren who are so unfortunate as to be thus begot are smother'd at the Moment of their Birth; many of these People contract intimacies and live together as man and wife for years, in the course of which the Children that are born are destroy'd.
They are so far from concealing it that they look upon it as a branch of freedom upon which they Value themselves.
They are called Arreoys, and have meetings among themselves, where the men amuse themselves with Wrestling, etc., and the Women in dancing the indecent dance before-mentioned, in the course of which they give full Liberty to their desires, but I believe keep up to the appearance of decency.
I never see one of these meetings; Dr.Monkhouse saw part of one, enough to make him give Credit to what we had been told. Both sexes express the most indecent ideas in conversation without the least emotion, and they delight in such conversation beyond any other. Chastity, indeed, is but little valued, especially among the middle people--if a Wife is found guilty of a breach of it her only punishment is a beating from her husband.
The Men will very readily offer the Young Women to Strangers, even their own Daughters, and think it very strange if you refuse them; but this is done merely for the sake of gain. The Houses or dwellings of these People are admirably calculated for the continual warmth of the Climate; they do not build them in Towns or Villages, but seperate each from the other, and always in the Woods, and are without walls, so that the air, cooled by the shade of the Trees, has free access in whatever direction it hapens to blow.
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