File:Nineteen years in Polynesia- missionary life, travels, and researches in the islands of the Pacific (1861) (14782089452).jpg

Identifier: nineteenyearsin00turn (find matches)
Title: Nineteen years in Polynesia: missionary life, travels, and researches in the islands of the Pacific
Year: 1861 (1860s)
Authors: Turner, George, 1817 or 18-1891
Subjects: Polynesia Missions
Publisher: London J. Snow
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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h went blazing up every eight or tenminutes. So far as we observed, that is the usualinterval between the eruptions, night and day. Thenative name of the volcano is Asur (Asoor). Theyhave a tradition that it came from the neighbouringisland of Aneiteum; and, probably, this may befounded on some such fact as the extinction of avolcano on Aneiteum being followed by the outbreakof this one on Tanna. But I hasten to the people. Tanna is a field ofno ordinary interest for scientific observation; butthe business of the missionary is man. The popu-lation of the island cannot, I think, be less than tenor twelve thousand. They are under the middlestature. There are some fine exceptions, but thatis the rule. Their colour is exactly that of an oldcopper coin. You see some of them as black as theNew Hollanders, but it is occasioned by dyeing theirbodies a few shades darker than the natural colour.They have less of the negro cast of countenance thansome of the other Papuan tribes we have met with,
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TANNA AND THE TANNESE. 77 and if they would only wash the paint off their faces,and look like men, yon might pick out from amongthem a company of good-looking fellows. We oftensaid to each other there is so-and-so, the very imageof some old friend or fellow-student. Red is the favourite colour of paint for the face.It is a red earth, which they get principally fromAneiteum. They first oil the face, and then daubon the dry powder with the thumb. Some of thechiefs show their rank by an extra coat of the pig-ment, and have it plastered on as thick as clay.Black is the sign of mourning. This they managewith oil and pounded charcoal. Some make theirfaces glisten like the work of a shoe-black. Othersseem as if they had first oiled their faces, and thendipped them into a bag of soot. Their hair is frizzled, and often of a light browncolour, rather than black. The women wear it short,but have it all laid out in a forest of little erect curls,about an inch and a-half long. There is somethingqu

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