They have flutes and tom-toms for beating time. The most ordinary form of the former instrument is a piece of bamboo closed at both ends and pierced by six holes, into which they blow with the right nostril while the left is stopped with the thumb.
Their chants are a kind of recitative which has for its subject some more or less remarkable event; or else consist of words intended to accompany different descriptions of dances or ceremonies.
The inhabitants of these islands recognize a host of divinities, who possess among themselves various degrees of preeminence. Of these gods, those of elevated rank can dispense good or evil in proportion to their relative powers. According to the natives’ notion the origin of these divine beings is beyond the intelligence of man, and their existence is eternal.
“Taboo” reigns as despotically in these islands as it does in New Zealand.
There is a barbarous ceremony in use here, by which a child is strangled as an offering to the gods and to gain from them the cure of a sick relation; the same rite also takes place when a chief inadvertently commits a sacrilege which might draw down the anger of the divinities upon the whole nation.
In other cases, they cut off a joint of the little finger in order to obtain the recovery of a parent who is ill, and consequently crowds of people may be seen who have lost in succession the two joints of the fourth finger of each hand, and even the first joint of the next.
Charms and signs occupy a prominent place in the religion of this people. Dreams are warnings from the divinity; thunder and lightning are indications of war or of some great catastrophe.
Sneezing is an act of the worst possible omen. A chief was near clubbing to death a traveller who had sneezed in his presence at the moment when the native was going to fulfil his duties at his father’s tomb.
Tahitians.– Tahiti and the whole group of the Society Islands are almost exclusively inhabited by the same branch of the Malaysio-Polynesian race. The people of these islands have become celebrated in France by the charming and interesting accounts of their manners and habits, which have been published by Bougainville. We have taken the details which follow from Lesson, the naturalist, who made a somewhat lengthened stay in this island.
The natives of Tahiti are all, with scarcely an exception, very fine men. Their limbs are at once vigorous and graceful, the muscular projections being everywhere enveloped by a thick cellular tissue, which rounds away any too prominent development of their frames. Their countenances are marked by great sweetness, and an appearance of good nature; their heads would be of the European type but for the flatness of the nostrils, and the too great size of the lips; their hair is black and thick, and their skin of light copper-colour and very varying in intensity of hue. It is smooth and soft to the touch, but emits a strong, heavy smell, attributable, in a great measure, to incessant rubbings with cocoa-nut oil. Their step wants confidence, and they become easily fatigued. Dwelling on a soil where alimentary products, once abundantly sown, harvest themselves without labour or effort, the Tahitians have preserved soft effeminate manners, and a certain childishness in their ideas.
The seductive attractions of Tahitian women have been very charmingly painted by Bougainville, Wallis, and Cook, but Lesson assures us, on the contrary, that they are extremely ugly, and that a person would hardly find in the whole island thirty passable faces, according to our ideas of beauty. He adds, that after early youth all the females become disgusting, by reason of a general flabbiness, which is all the greater because it usually succeeds considerable stoutness. There is room for believing that the good looks of the race have deteriorated in consequence of contagious diseases since the first European navigators landed in this island, a very fortunate one in the magnificence of its vegetation and the mildness of its temperature.
Tahitian girls before marriage have full legs, small hands, large mouths, flattened nostrils, prominent cheek-bones and fleshy lips; their teeth are of the finest enamel, and their well-shaped prominent eyes, shaded by long, fringed lashes, and sheltered by broad black eyebrows, beam with animation and fire. Too early marriage and suckling, however, very soon destroy any charms which they may possess. Their skin is usually of a light copper-colour, but some are remarkable for their whiteness, particularly the wives of the chiefs.
Family ties are very strong among the Tahitians. They have great love for their children, speak to them with gentleness, never strike them, and taste nothing pleasing without offering them some of it.
The women manufacture cloth, weave mats or straw hats, and take care of the house. The men build the huts, hollow canoes, plant trees, gather fruits, and cook the victuals in underground ovens. Essentially indolent, the Tahitians generally go to bed at twilight.
177. – NATIVE OF TAHITI.
All the members of the family live huddled together in the same room, on mats spread upon the ground; chiefs, alone, reposing upon similar textures stretched on frames. The siesta is also one of their habits, and they invariably sleep for three hours after noon.
Flesh-meat, fruits, and roots constitute their usual sustenance; but the basis of their food is the fruit of the bread-tree. They venerate the cocoa-tree.
Their ordinary drink is pure water. They have an unrestrained fancy for European garments, and seek by every imaginable means to get themselves coats, hats, silk cravats, and especially shirts. But as they do not possess sufficient of our manufactures to dress themselves completely in our style, they frequently exhibit a sort of motley attire. The women when within-doors are almost naked; some pieces of cloth, skilfully arranged and half-covering their bosoms, form a kind of tunic, while their feet are bare. They have a great liking for chaplets of flowers, and bright blossoms of the Hibiscus Rosa sinensis, or China rose, adorn their foreheads. They pass through the lobe of their ears the long tube of the white and perfumed corolla of the gardenia, and protect their faces from the fiery rays of the sun with small leaves of the cocoa-tree.
The chief employment of the Tahitians is the manufacture of cloth. By very simple means they form fabrics from various barks, with which they clothe themselves in a manner as ingenious as it is comfortable. The paper-mulberry tree, the bread-tree, the Hibiscus tiliaceus, &c., are the plants of which they generally use the inner bark. They dye these stuffs with the red juice extracted from the fruit of a species of fig-tree, or in canary-yellow.
Their garments are not the only things which these people embellish in brilliant colours and with different patterns. They have a passionate love for tattooing, but, nevertheless, do not bear a single device on their faces. The parts on which they trace indelible marks are the legs, arms, thighs and breast. Everything leads to the conclusion that tattooing, which is forbidden by the missionaries under the severest penalties, was, and is doubtless still, the symbol of each individual’s functions and the emblazonment of the armorial bearings of families, for its designs are always varied.
The Tahitians of former days constructed canoes ornamented with very carefully executed emblematic carvings, but since iron tools have taken the place of their imperfect implements, they do not give signs of the same pains in adorning their workmanship. Their ancient weapons are also greatly neglected since they have acquired firearms. Heretofore, they had long spears with pointed ends, slings formed from the husk of the cocoa-nut, basalt axes of perfect shape, and files made out of the rasp-like skin of a skate.
They have a passionate love for dancing. The instrument they use for beating the measure is a drum, the cylinder of which consists of a trunk of a tree scooped very thin. The dog-skins which constitute the drum-head are stretched by ribbons of bark. They blow with the nose into a little reed flute having three holes at its open end, and one only at that which is furnished with a diaphragm, and produce deep, monotonous tones from it.
The Tahitians are hospitable, and display great civility in guiding travellers in the middle of the woods, and in their mountains. Christianity has modified their habits a little. They attend the Protestant churches because they are obliged to do so, but they have little religion. Among themselves property is sacred; that of strangers is, however, eagerly coveted.
We cannot dwell here upon the sanguinary human sacrifices which their priests formerly commanded the natives of this island to offer up, nor upon their coarse mythology. The English missionaries of the Reformed Church have long since caused these fiendish customs to disappear.
Pomotouans– The Pomotouans, who inhabit the low, flat islands known to geographers and mariners by the name of the Dangerous Archipelago, are constituted in a physical point of view like the Tahitians, to whom they bear a close resemblance, but they do not possess the benevolent character nor the affectionate manners of the latter. Their look is fierce, and the play of the features savage. They cover their bodies and faces with tattooing, the figures of which consist of lozenges and numerous circles, and their nakedness seems quite to disappear beneath the mass of these designs. As the islands they inhabit are poor in alimentary productions, they only think of repelling by force any navigators who attempt to enter into communication with them. Deriving as they do their daily sustenance from the sea, they are daring sailors and skilful fishermen. They form, from a very hard wood, javelins that are sometimes fifteen feet long, and ornament them with carvings executed with much taste; their paddles are also engraved in very graceful patterns, as well as their axes, which are cut with coral. The women wear on their throats pieces of mother-of-pearl, which are shaped round and notched at the edges, making brilliant and elegant necklaces. Our spirituous liquors are frantically sought after by the natives.
Marquesans.– The aborigines of the Marquesas are closely allied to those of the Society Islands, having similar features and a colour which presents like varieties. Cook affirmed that they excelled perhaps all the other races in the nobleness and elegance of their forms, and the regularity of their lineaments. The men are tattooed from head to foot and appear very brown, but the women, who are only lightly marked, the children, and the young people, who are not so at all, have skins as white as many Europeans. The men are in general tall, and wear the beard long and arranged in different ways. Their garments are identical with those of the Tahitians, and made from stuffs of the same materials.
Sandwichians.– The colour of this people is that of Siena clay, slightly mixed with yellow. Their hair would be magnificent if they allowed it to grow, for it is as black and shining as jet. Their manners are pleasing. They usually shave the sides of the head, allowing a tuft to grow on the top, which extends down to the nape of the neck in the form of a mane. Some, however, preserve their hair entire, and let it float in very gracefully twisted locks about their shoulders. Their eyes are lively and full of expression; their nose slightly flat and often aquiline; their mouth and lips moderately large. They have splendid teeth, and it is consequently a great pity when they extract a few on the death of a friend or benefactor. Their chests are broad, but their arms show little muscle, while the thighs and legs are sinewy enough, and their feet and hands excessively small. They all tattoo their bodies or one of their limbs with designs representing birds, fans, chequer-work, and circles of different diameters. The same superstition that deprives them of their teeth at the death of a relation or of a friend also imposes upon them the obligation of cauterizing every part of their bodies with a red-hot iron.
The women are not so well-made as the men, and their stature is small rather than tall, but their ample shoulders, and the smallness of their hands and feet, are generally admired. They have a great love for coronets of green leaves. Princesses and ladies of high rank have reserved to themselves the exclusive right of wearing flowers of vacci passed through a reed. Hardly any of them use more than one earring, but they have a passion for necklaces, and make them of flowers and fruits.
These details are derived from Jacques Arago, who published under the title, “Voyage autour du Monde,” an account of the long and remarkable journey which he made in 1817, and the three following years, on board the French corvettes, L’Uranie and La Physicienne, commanded by Freycinet.
In a letter dated from Owhyhee, as was also that from which the preceding information has been taken, the same traveller gives us the following sketch of the “palace” of the Sovereign of the Sandwich Islands, as well as of its occupants.
It was a miserable thatch hut, from twelve to fifteen feet in breadth, and about five-and-twenty or thirty feet long, with no means of entrance but a low, narrow door. A few mats were spread within, on which some half-naked colossi – generals and ministers – were lying. Two chairs were visible, destined on ceremonial days for a huge, greasy, dirty, heavy, haughty man – the king. The queen, but half-dressed, was a prey to the itch and other disgusting maladies. This tasteful and imposing interior was protected by walls of cocoa leaves and a sea-weed roof, feeble obstacles to the wind and rain.
M. de la Salle in his account of the voyage of the Bonite (1836 and 1837), states that the natives of the Sandwich Islands generally possess good constitutions; that their slender and well-formed figures are usually above middle height, but far from equalling that of the chiefs and their wives, who seem from their tall stature and excessive corpulence to have a different origin from the common people. These exalted personages appear in fact to be descended from a race of conquerors, who, having subjugated the country, established there the feudal system by which it is still oppressed. The same author adds that the Sandwichians have mild, patient dispositions, are dexterous and intelligent, and capable of bearing fatigue with ease.
Such is the state of misery in which the lower classes live, that the unfortunate wretches have scarcely what will keep them from dying of starvation. This distress is not the result of idleness alone; the ever increasing exactions of the chiefs harass and discourage the labourer.
The voyagers in the Bonite when drawing near the Sandwich Islands, could think of nothing but the pictures of them which Captain Cook has left us; of those wild, energetic, kind, simple men; those warriors in mantles of feathers; those women full of grace and voluptuousness; of whom the English explorer has given the most alluring descriptions. They were first pleased by the neat and elegant shapes of the canoes as well as by the expertness of the swimmers. They beheld the islanders as naked as in the days of Cook, without any other attire than the traditional “maro;” but these men did not now come, by way of salute, to crush their noses against those of their visitors; they were profuse of handshaking all round, in the English fashion, and affected the airs of gentlemen. Bananas, potatoes, and other fresh provisions had been brought on board by them, but when, as in olden times, they were offered necklaces, bracelets, and ear-rings, the savages no longer showed the genuine admiration and fierce eagerness which were looked for from them. After a disdainful glance thrown at the beads, they asked for clothes and iron. These men had ceased to be the artless islanders of the time of Captain Cook!
178. – NATIVE OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.
One of the officers of the Bonite, M. Vaillant, was invited to come on shore by a district chief, named Kapis-Lani, who happened to be a woman. Her toilet did not in the least resemble that of the natives, consisting of a white muslin robe confined at the waist by a long blue riband, a silk kerchief rolled about her neck, and a head-dress of hair fastened by two horn combs.
The former customs of the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands have been completely modified, from every point of view, by the English missionaries, who, in order to gain their object have availed themselves of the weapon heretofore so powerful in the hands of priests and of kings, – “taboo.”
Formerly, when a ship arrived, a multitude of women used to come to take it by assault, either in canoes or swimming, contending among themselves, per fas et nefas, for the bounties of the strangers: the missionaries declared the sea “tabooed” for the softer sex.
In order to restrain the laxity of morals, wives were proclaimed “tabooed” for everyone except their husbands, and unmarried girls “tabooed” for all. It was necessary to proscribe the passion for strong drinks, and consequently brandy, wine, and other liquors were struck with the same interdiction.
We should add that these reformers did not limit themselves to the moral authority of “taboo,” but supported it by the stick and hard labour on the roads.
By such means they have succeeded in altering the external and public behaviour of the natives, but not in uprooting vice among them.
We shall borrow a few features from the picture which M. Vaillant has sketched of his walk in a village of Hawaii.
Scarcely had he arrived when he heard himself called from the interior of a large cabin in which were assembled about thirty persons, who invited him to enter.
The dwelling was built of straw, and along its walls calabashes, cocoa-nuts, and a few fishing utensils were to be seen hanging in confusion.
A single apartment usually answered all purposes, but it was separated into two parts. Some mats spread upon the ground at one side indicated where the occupants slept; the ground opposite was bare, and in the latter division the hearth was placed.
The officer seated himself on the matting in the same way as his hosts, who surrounded him and overpowered him with questions. Men and women, moreover, without giving a thought to decency or the civilization introduced by the English missionaries, put themselves perfectly at their ease, and were content with the very simple attire of their forefathers; the “maro” formed the whole extravagance of their toilette.
The most apparent result of the efforts of the missionaries is that the natives of the Sandwich Islands are for the most part able to read and write. These perfectly naked savages possess a prayer-book, a treatise on arithmetic, and a bible.
Any little presents which people liked to offer them were accepted by the women with gratitude; after a few coquettish advances, in case a person pressed them closely, they uttered slowly and distinctly, the word, “taboo.”
When out-of-doors their costume consisted of a piece of cloth which they draped around them not ungracefully; but they did not appear very pretty to the eyes of the voyagers in the Bonite.
The governor of Hawaii, Kona-Keni, was a man of goodly presence and pleasing face; his height was almost gigantic and his corpulence enormous, so much so that he could scarcely support himself upon his legs. His wife received M. Vaillant. She reclined on a heap of mats forming a bed raised a foot above the ground, and was covered from head to foot in a loose gown of blue brocaded silk. Her proportions also were immense. Laid heavily on the piled-up mats her prodigious mass reminded him of a seal basking in the sun. Around the bed of the lady paramount, were ranged, squatted on mats, the numerous dames forming the court of Kona, and who were clad in loose robes of cotton stuff with coloured flowers. Their head-dresses consisted of hair only, in the American style. Two of them were provided with fly-flappers, which they waved incessantly round Kona’s head. The governor wore a straw hat, a vest and shirt of printed calico, gray trowsers, and had his neck bare.
P. Sellier, p.t
Imp. Dupuy, 22, R. des Petits Hôtels
G. Regamey, lith.
ABYSSINIAN
HINDOO
BROWN RACE
Micronesian Family
The Micronesian Family inhabits the small islands lying to the north-west of Oceania, that is to say the archipelagos of the Marianne (or Ladrone) Islands, as well as of the Caroline and Mulgrave groups, &c. According to Dumont d’Urville these tribes differ from those dwelling in the east by having a darker skin, thinner face, less widely opened eyes, more slender forms, and altogether distinct dialects, which vary from one group to another. Their manners are gentle. They do not recognize “taboo.”
We shall avail ourselves of some interesting details which Lesson has given of the Caroline islands, mentioning in the first place what he has told us concerning the Gilbert group.
A solitary canoe containing three men ventured to approach his corvette, and it was only after prolonged hesitation that these individuals made up their minds to go on board. They had lank and miserable limbs; a dark colour, and broad, coarse features; their hair was cut close by means of a shell, and neither beard nor moustache was apparent. The only covering they wore was a little round cap of plaited dry leaves of the cocoa tree, and a roughly-made mat with a hole in the middle, for the protection of the shoulders and breast. Their stomachs were bound round with twists of a rope formed from the husk of cocoa-nuts.
Lesson and his companions were the first Europeans whom the natives of the island of Oualan had seen. They made a ring round the voyagers, touched them with their hands, and overwhelmed them with questions. This race is generally of low stature. The men have high and narrow foreheads, thick eyebrows, small oblique eyes, broad noses, large mouths, white teeth, and bright red gums. Their black unfrizzled hair is long, and their beard far from abundant. They possess rounded and well-formed limbs, and a hard, light bronze-coloured skin. They are spiritless and effeminate.
The women and young girls have agreeable countenances, their black eyes being full of fire, and their mouths furnished with superb teeth; but their figures are badly formed, and they have hips of immoderate size. They go about in almost complete nudity. Both sexes have a habit of making a large hole in the right ear, for the purpose of placing in it everything that people give them, and sometimes articles very unfit for earrings, such as bottles. Girls usually fill it with bouquets of pancratium, a plant of the amaryllis family, and often detach a few of these sweet-smelling flowers, and try to put them into a traveller’s ears, while smiling graciously. The men also wear chaplets of brilliant flowers or arum stalks.
These aborigines do not make use of any kind of garments as a protection against the frequent rains of their climate, but they shield their heads from the sun with a broad arum leaf.
The chiefs seem to try not to expose themselves so much to the influences of the heat, and are whiter and better made than the other islanders. The patterns of their tattooing are their sole mark of distinction; they fasten feathers, however, in the knot which confines their hair, and whenever persons give them nails they stick them around their forehead, arranging them regularly like a diadem. The women appeared chaste; nay more, the men were anxious to keep them out of the strangers’ sight, a feeling all the more remarkable because quite at variance with the usual habits of the South Sea Islanders.
Oualan was governed at that time by one chief only, whom the people encompassed with extraordinary reverence, never pronouncing his name without veneration.
The prerogatives of the chiefs appear to rest upon religious ideas. They differ in general from the people by an erect carriage, a more imposing and solemn manner, as well as by the better executed tattooing which indicates their rank. A great many chiefs rule in the districts of the island, and appear to hold absolute rights over property, and, it may be, over persons.
As regards industry, the only manufactures for which the natives of Oualan are remarkable are cloth and canoes. They draw threads from the leaves or the stems of the wild banana tree (Musa textilis), which they know how to dye in red, yellow, or black, and with which they make stuffs that are not greatly inferior to European textures.
They build their boats with hatchets formed of stone or shell, and notwithstanding the imperfection of these implements, give to their work a finish of finical nicety. The body of the canoe is hollowed from a single tree, sometimes a very big one. They polish the wood with trachyte, or by means of large rasps made from the skin of the sea-devil. These little vessels are propelled by oars, without either sails or masts.
Lesson, in alluding to the people of the Mac-Askill Islands, who bear the closest analogy to the inhabitants of Oualan both in physical characteristics and the state of their industry, remarks on the taste which some savages display for flowers as an adornment of the person. There were young females in these islands who wore on their heads crowns of Ixora, the corollas of which are a brilliant crimson; a few had passed through the holes in their ears leaves of flowers exhaling the fragrant odour of violets, and white blossoms were twined in the hair of others. These ornaments, adds the learned traveller, possessed a charm more easy to feel than to express.