[joan]

Didn't Captain Bligh, after he was put overboard with some other men on a small boat in "The Bounty Mutiny", write of the dangerous natives on the islands they would stop at on their way home?

I think he would often use colorful and shiny things and trinkets - attaching or nailing them to trees, for example -to distract them long enough so he and the others could get back on the boat and out to sea.

[Bokababe]

Don't recall, but it sounds about right.

But if these guys were drunk, the natives probably saw them coming before they even woke up. By the time that they did come to, they were likely the ones being "nailed to trees" by the natives!