Georg Forster, the naturalist on Cook’s second voyage, reports in his chronicle “Voyage around the World” from the Tongan island of `Eua on October 2, 1773 about the acquisition of such decorative combs:
“Our people purchased ... the neatest ornamental combs that can imagined, consisting of a number of little flat sticks about five inches long, of a yellow and woodlike box, most firmly and elegantly connected together at the bottom by a tissue of the fibres of coco-nut, some of which were of their natural colour and other dyed black.”