This powerful image is described in a passage from Cook's journals:
"It is a kind of mask, made of a large gourd with holes cut in it for eyes and nose. The top was stuck full of small green twigs that, at a distance, had the appearance of an elegant waving plume, and from the lower part hung narrow strips of cloth resembling a beard.

We never saw these masks worn but twice, and both times by a number of people in a canoe, who came to the side of the ships, laughing and drolling with an air of masquerading."*

*Cook's Journal - March 1779