THE INSIGNIA OF TAHITIAN ROYALTY

Tahitian royalty was hereditary, and women were not excluded. There were chiefs and chiefesses governing tribes, and head chiefs and head chiefesses ruling over several tribes or the whole island. There were no crowns and no sceptres. The insignia of royalty was a belt ornamented with feathers. The red feathers were what the diamonds and other precious stones are in ancient and modern crowns. This belt was called Maro. Captain Cook gives the following description of a maro:

It is a girdle, about five yards long, and fifteen inches broad; and, from its name, seems to be put on in the same manner as is the common maro, or piece of cloth used by these people to wrap round the waist. It was ornamented with red and yellow feathers; but mostly with the latter, taken from a dove found upon the island. The one end was bordered with eight pieces, each about the size and shape of a horseshoe, having their edges fringed with black feathers. The other end was forked, and the points were of different lengths. The feathers were in square compartments, ranged in two rows, and otherwise so disposed to produce a pleasing effect. They had been first pasted or fixed upon some of their own cloth, and then sewed to the upper end of the pendant which Captain Wallis had displayed, and left flying ashore, the first time that he landed at Matavai.

This insignia of office was highly respected by the natives and was handed down from one generation of rulers to the other, carrying with it the sovereignty of the office. One of the civil wars in the island was caused by a failure on the part of one of the chief esses (Purea) to deliver the maro to her legitimate successor.