In the same manner their basket and wicker work are most ingeniously made; the former in patterns of a thousand different kinds.
Their nets and fishing-lines are strong and neatly made, so are their fish-hooks of pearl-shell; and their clubs are admirable specimens of wood-carving.
A people so lively, sprightly, and good-humoured as the Otaheitans are, must necessarily have their amusements.

They are fond of music, such as is derived from a rude flute and a drum; of dancing, wrestling, shooting with the bow, and throwing the lance.

They exhibit frequent trials of skill and strength in wrestling; and Cook says it is scarcely possible for those who are acquainted with the athletic sports of very remote antiquity, not to remark a rude resemblance of them in a wrestling-match (which he describes) among the natives of a little island in the midst of the Pacific Ocean.
But these simple-minded people have their vices, and great ones too.
Chastity is almost unknown among a certain description of women: there is a detestable society called _Arreoy_, composed, it would seem, of a particular class, who are supposed to be the chief warriors of the island.

In this society the men and women live in common; and on the birth of a child it is immediately smothered, that its bringing up may not interfere with the brutal pleasures of either father or mother.
Another savage practice is that of immolating human beings at the _Morais_, which serve as temples as well as sepulchres, and yet, by the report of the missionaries, they entertain a due sense and reverential awe of the Deity.

'With regard to their worship,' Captain Cook does the Otaheitans but justice in saying, 'they reproach many who bear the name of Christians.