CHAPTER III.
MALAY BRANCH.
This branch approaches closely to the Indo-Chinese. The races composing it are of medium height, regularly made and with well-proportioned limbs; their skin varies from an olive-yellow to a brown hue, and their hair is smooth, black, or occasionally brown. They appear susceptible of civilization and are often divided into regular nations.
Dumont d’Urville has distinguished among these races three divisions which he has designated by the appellations of Malays, Polynesians, and Micronesians; and these groups will be treated here as so many families.
Malay Family.
The Malay family, which inhabits Malaysia and the peninsula of Malacca, is made up of a vast number of nations, the widely varied characteristics of which partake more or less of those of the Indo-Chinese, the Hindoos, and even the Negroes. We shall specify in this family the Malays, Javanese, Battas, Bugs, or Bougis, the Macassars, Dyaks, and Tagals.
Malays.—The Malays constitute the most numerous and remarkable branch of this family. They are spread over the peninsula of Malacca, the islands of Java, Borneo, Sumatra, and Celebes, and in the Moluccas, etc. This group of islands was formerly known as the Indian Archipelago, and owes its name of Malaysia to the naturalist Lesson.
The chief characteristics of the Malays are a lithe and active body, medium stature, somewhat slanting eyes, prominent cheekbones, a flat nose, smooth glossy hair, and a scanty beard. Their limbs are elegantly formed and their hair is black and curling. The flatness of their noses is attributable to an artificial cause, as, immediately on the birth of an infant, this feature is compressed until the cartilage is broken, for a broad flat face is considered a point of beauty, and a projecting nose would be looked on as a snout. Their lips are deformed by the inordinate chewing of the betel leaf, and become ultimately repulsive in appearance on account of their exaggerated redness and the extravasated blood beneath their surface. The yellow colour of their skin is heightened still more by artificial means, for it is regarded as an attraction, and is the aristocratic tint; daily rubbing with henna or turmeric bring it to a saffron tinge. The natural complexion of the women is pale and dull; brown is predominant among the men. The princes and dignitaries stain a dark yellow every part of the body exposed to view.
A Malay’s clothing is of a very light description, consisting, both for men and women, of two large pieces of stuff skilfully arranged and confined at the waist by a scarf. Princes and moneyed persons alone wear a kind of drawers.
The indolence of the Malays is excessive. With the exception of the slaves, no one works. They are in fact an utterly demoralized people; murder, pillage, and outrage are familiar to them, they possess neither honour nor gratitude, and have no respect for their pledged word. Play is with them a passion, a frenzy. They gamble away their property, their wives and children, everything, in fact, except their own persons. They are victims of opium and the betel plant. Nevertheless some laws have existence among them, for murder and robbery are punishable by fines and corporal punishments.
The Malays of the Malacca peninsula are not, like the inhabitants of the Archipelago, violent, passionate, and lazy. They are an energetic, provident, trading, industrious race, but quite as rapacious and as tricky as the others. Like the inhabitants of Malaysia, too, they are prone to vengeance, and when under the influence of opium this sentiment becomes inflamed, and turns into a kind of fury, directed not only against the person of the offender but also against harmless passers-by. The Malay who is a prey to this double paroxysm of opium and frenzy, snatches up a sharp weapon, dashes forth furiously, shouting “Kill! Kill!” and strikes everyone who crosses his path.
The police of the country employ a small body of very strong and active men whose special duty it is to seize these raging maniacs. They hunt the miserable wretch through the streets, and having caught him by the neck in a kind of fork, throw him on the ground and pin him there until a sufficient reinforcement arrives to enable them to tie him hand and foot, when he is brought before a court of justice and nearly always sentenced to death (fig. 169).
Javanese.—These people, who inhabit the island of Java, are rather light in complexion, and bear a close resemblance to the Indo-Chinese. For the following information about the population of this wonderful and splendid country, we are indebted to M. de Molins, who made a stay of two years there, and whose notes have been arranged and published by M. F. Coppée, in the “Tour du Monde.”
The stranger traversing Batavia, the chief town of Java, cannot be an uninterested observer of the motley crowd perpetually renewing itself before his eyes. Among the numberless half-clothed men he sees none but brawny shoulders and wiry, muscular frames. He is struck by the dull, dark brown complexion of the Indian, whose hue appears to vary with the district where he happens to be located; for his skin which seems brick-red on the sea coast assumes a violet and pinkish tinge near masses of vegetation, and becomes almost black in a dusty region. The perfectly naked children gambolling in the full rays of the sun look like fine antique bronzes, so graceful are their attitudes and so faultless their mould. The Malay in his turban, tight-fitting green vest, and grey petticoat striped with whimsical patterns, has quite a handsome head. His face is oval with eyes of almond shape and a thin, straight nose; the mouth is shaded by a slight, glossy black moustache and his high broad forehead is admirably formed. All do not perhaps possess so many advantages, but they are without exception finely made, with beautiful black, smooth, and silky hair.
The Javanese wear hats of bamboo, the plaiting of which is perfect. These are of all patterns, large and small, round, pointed, or made in the shape of shields, extinguishers, or basins. Their costume varies; some of the men wear Arab vests and wide trousers; some would be naked but for a sort of drawers; while a few swathe their loins in a piece of Indian calico which displays the form; and others are clad in a very narrow petticoat that produces a most picturesque effect. The natives make all their garments out of a broad piece of stuff manufactured in the country, the devices and colours of which manifest extraordinary variety and astonishing taste.
The women’s head-dress consists of a handkerchief which is tied and arranged in a more or less artistic manner.
At Sourabaya the traveller mingled in the throng, composed of a sprinkling of Chinese, Malays, and natives of Madura, but throughout which the Javanese element predominated. The typical costume of the country may be said to consist of the long-folded sahrong, a very close-fitting vest, and a kind of sunshade on the head, covered in blue cloth interwoven with gold and silver thread, and lined with red. The colours used here are not very gaudy, and the priests may at once be recognized by their ample turbans and white muslin vests. A few palanquins were moving about through the crowd; those of the Javanese are formed of a hammock suspended from a bamboo cross-stick and sheltered from the rays of the sun by a little roof of bamboo or palm-leaf matting. Long boats laden with cargo and having gracefully curved prows were passing up and down the river.
On fête days all the components of this motley multitude are drawn together by the performances of the Javanese bayaderes, or dancing girls (fig. 172).
When visiting the cemetery M. de Molins saw the native Prince of Soerabaya, who had come there to pray at the tomb of his forefathers. His excessively simple costume was only distinguished from that of ordinary Javanese by a loop of diamonds stuck in the very small turban enveloping his head, and by a beautiful gold clasp fastening the belt of his sahrong.
In the Javanese Kampong our traveller saw copper articles; such as betel-roll boxes, bowls, and water vases; which were ornamented in charming and fantastic taste with engraved arabesques representing the flowers, fruits, and animals of the country; and he was struck with surprise at the goldsmiths being able to form such marvellous trinkets with tools of the most primitive description. He went to see one of the large manufactories where are made the curious sahrongs worn by the inhabitants, the shades of colour in which rival those of the most valuable cashmeres in brilliancy, harmony, and richness. The process of making these fabrics is a slow and difficult one. A fine sahrong is worth more than £4 and does not exceed two and a half yards in length by one yard in width.
In one of his excursions M. de Molins met a wedding procession. The happy couple, who belonged to two equally rich families, were in a very pretty palanquin surmounted by a canopy ornamented with palm leaves and a trellis-work of bamboos and reeds. The garments of the newly married pair were of red silk brocaded with gold embroidery, and their heads, necks, arms and hands were covered with jewellery. Children ran alongside and in front shouting and making the air resound with the noise of gongs, tom-toms, and cymbals (fig. 173). Four men in yellow breeches, with blue and white girdles, their hips adorned by long pointed strips of blue and yellow silk, and their heads bound with a tightly-fitting turban of the same colours, carried at the end of long poles, bright, waving bouquets made of tiny rosettes of blue, yellow, and white paper attached to thin canes. Relatives, friends, and all those who expected to partake of the repast which was generously provided, followed the palanquin.
Ceremonies of different kinds precede this solemn procession; and for several days before it takes place the betrothed couple are obliged to submit to a public exhibition and general hubbub, and are condemned to remain nearly completely motionless and in almost total abstinence, lest they should in any way damage their clothes.
This marriage festival is the grand occasion for displaying all the resources of Javanese culinary art. The fruits are served at the beginning of the banquet, and steamed rice only slightly cooked forms the principal dish.
The feast would be a sorry one, if the bill of fare did not include pickles, salt fish dried in the sun while alive, half-hatched eggs also salted, a hash of meats perfumed with roses and jessamine, the seeds of various plants, and slices of cocoa-nut rolled in pimento. The first time a European tastes these dishes he feels a dreadful sensation of burning, which passes from the mouth to the stomach and seems to be ever increasing. But people soon appear to grow accustomed to these spicy ragouts; and M. de Molins says that in a short time this kind of cookery, which greatly tends to stimulate the appetite, becomes indispensable.
During this gentleman’s stay at Soerabaya, the Dutch Governor-General of Java was there on his tour of inspection of the island, which takes place every five years. High festivities had been ordered for the reception of this exalted personage, and M. de Molins gives us a sketch of the princes who were present at a grand revel. The skin of many was blue; their perfectly delicate and regular features bore the melancholy, stamp peculiar to Orientals, and their movements were full of ease and grace. Their sahrong, woven in silk of the most beautiful shades, was fastened at the waist by a flowing girdle that fell over extremely tight pantaloons, and sparkled with gold embroidery; their chest, shoulders, and arms were left naked, and had been thickly coated with saffron-coloured powder for the occasion. Their head-gear consisted of a truncated cone, either blue, red, or black, braided with gold or silver lace; and their ears were adorned with a kind of wing, in goldwork of the most exquisite finish and lightness. The princes were accompanied by the officers of their suite, among whom the Umbrella-Bearer was conspicuous. The enormous sunshades carried by those functionaries bear a double resemblance to a shield and a lance, and are at once warlike-looking and foppish. They are gilt or silvered, green, blue, or black, and produce the most uncommon effect.
Battas.—The Battas, who inhabit the island of Sumatra, exhibit a very singular mixture in their habits, as they unite with ideas of order and civilization practices quite as ferocious as those of the most savage people.
Bougis and Macassars.—The Bougis and Mankasses (Mangkassars, which Europeans have turned into Macassars) occupy the Celebes Islands, and are renowned for their courage.
The former nation is looked on as the most ancient and enlightened race in the Celebes group. Not only have they a secret and sacred language, but a second idiom which is familiar to all classes, and in addition a written tongue. They possess a system of writing, and even a literature. These men are upright, faithful to their promise, and thoroughly loyal in diplomatic and commercial dealings. Their mere word is of more value than the most solemn oaths of the inhabitants of Java, Sumatra, and Borneo.
Tagales.—The Tagales and Bissayes who dwell in the Philippines, the former in Luzon, and the latter in the centre group, speak dialects very different from those of the Malays, properly so-called. The anonymous author who has described the voyage of the Austrian frigate Novara, has supplied us with some details as to the varied and amusing aspect of the population of Manilla, the chief town of Luzon.
The padres, in long black soutanes, and spout-shaped felt hats, stroll under the shade of the palm trees; Christian Brothers jostle Confraternities of the Virgin and Fathers of the Conception and of the Nativity. Make way for grey, yellow, and brown-frocked monks, and for those who discipline themselves with hair shirts and whips! Galley-slaves, chained two and two, are quietly moving hither and thither with pails of water. Charming senoritas, mostly Spanish half-bloods, with mantillas falling like a cascade of black lace along their raven and glossy tresses, in which green leaves and scarlet blossoms intertwine, compel us to admire their listless mien and their well-arched eyebrows shading their almond-shaped eyes. After the half-breeds, come the native Tagales, of pure or of mixed blood; Chinese women; and little negresses selling fruit and bouquets, or lounging about with cigarettes in their mouths.
The Tagales whom M. de Molins saw at Manilla, were small and weak. Their faces were by no means disagreeable, their colour a little lighter than that of other Malays, and their hair black without being woolly. The combinations of this race with the Negroes and Chinese, appeared to him most interesting.
Many travellers have described the natives of the Philippines. They are well-made men, of elegant, easy figure, and medium stature. Their feet and hands are small, exhibiting extreme delicacy at the point where they join the limbs. They have oval faces, with small but regular noses, well-coloured lips, and teeth that are long and white until they become spoiled by chewing the betel-leaf. The men’s hair is silky and curled; that of the women, soft, fine, and glossy.
The brown tint of the complexion is very changeable among these islanders, varying from the dark shade which belongs to those living in the open air, such as fishermen, hunters, and tillers of the soil, to the fair skins of the upper and sedentary classes. That portion of the people which has not been subjected to foreign influence is ingenious, industrious, and active. The men are warlike, and make excellent boat-builders. Their junks made of plaited bamboo, and manned by a couple of hundred warriors and rowers, spread such powerful sails and possess such speed, that they are the envy of the Spanish ship-builders.
Dyaks.—There are some tribes living in the vicinity of the people of whom we have just spoken and especially in the interior of the countries of which the Malays occupy the coasts, who are generally distinguished by the name of Alfusus. They have been often regarded as members of a separate stock, and a connexion has even been traced between them and the black race, but the greater part of these tribes ought to be considered as forming part of the Malay family. Among them are the Dyaks, a numerous people inhabiting the interior of Borneo, and the Turajas who dwell in the Celebes Islands.
The Dyaks (fig. 174) have well-made bodies, and the women’s faces are mild and agreeable in expression, but the men’s far from attractive. The constant warfare which they carry on with the Malays of the coast may be the cause why their features become ultimately so changed under the combined influences of fear, passion, and revenge.
The Dyaks who occupy the plains, and those living on the borders of rivers or in the woods, may be separately classed. Both groups are of similar stature, possess features alike, and the same lank, black hair, with large curls, which is however never woolly or frizzled; but those occupying the dense forests rising from the river banks have fairer complexions. Mutual hatred has been sworn between the two races, and they abandon themselves to incessant conflicts, and have ever to be on their guard against terrible surprises in which many heads are cut off. No Dyak would venture to present himself to a girl, without being able to show her the head of an enemy who had been overcome and sacrificed by him. A warrior’s renown depends on the number of heads he has acquired, and skulls dried in the fire form the ornaments and trophies of his hut.
These cutters off of heads are very cleanly, and bathe twice a day regularly. They have extremely severe laws, by which murder, outrage, and robbery are punished in the same way. They profess great veneration for old age as well as towards the dead. Their chronological system is based upon the yongas, or ages, as among the Hindoos, and they believe the present to be the age of misfortune. Their notion is, that some day during an eclipse of the sun or moon, a dragon will devour the stars; consequently whenever such phenomena occur, they make a terrific uproar in order to scare the monster away, a proceeding which has been invariably successful!
In her travels along the rivers Lappas and Kapouas (western side of Borneo) Madame Ida Pfeiffer visited a tribe of independent Dyaks, who are called “Head-Cutters” by the English and Dutch. She saw an immense cabin about sixty yards long, in the verandah of which fabrics made of cotton or of plaited bark of trees, splendid mats and baskets of every shape and size, were displayed. Drums and gongs hung on the walls, and large piles of bamboos, bags of rice, and dried pork, showed that the Dyaks had exhibited all their wealth for the occasion.
Nor were their own persons by any means forgotten. They had loaded their necks down to the breast with glass beads, bears’ teeth, and shells; brass rings covered the lower part of their legs, reaching half-way to the knee, their arms were adorned in the same way to the shoulders, and similar decorations were in their ears. Some wore a sort of red stuff cap, embellished with pearls, shells, and little flat bits of brass; others had wound round their heads a fillet formed of a piece of bark, the deeply fringed ends of which stuck out like feathers. A man decked out in this fashion, covered with ornaments from head to foot, presents a rather comical appearance.
The women had fewer adornments; they wore no earrings, nor bears’ teeth collars; a few displayed some glass beads; but more were satisfied with an incalculable number of brass or leaden rings.
Madame Pfeiffer, while among the Dyaks, witnessed a sword-dance, which was executed in the most skilful and elegant manner.
This travelled lady also visited another tribe located higher up the river, where she observed the same things, and in addition saw two human heads lately cut off. When showing them to Madame Pfeiffer, the Dyaks spat in their faces, and the children cuffed them, and spat on the ground.
The shocking custom of decapitation owes its origin to superstition. If a rajah falls ill, or sets out on a journey among another tribe, he and his subjects undertake to sacrifice a human head in case of his recovery or safe return; and should he die, they chop off a skull or two. The heads which they have sworn to immolate must be obtained at any cost. The Dyaks hide themselves in the long jungle grass, behind felled branches of trees, or under the dry leaves, and lie in wait for entire days. If anybody, man, woman, or child, comes in sight, they shoot a poisoned arrow at him, and rush like tigers on their prey. At one blow the head is severed from the body, and placed in a little basket reserved for this purpose, and ornamented with human hair.
These assassinations frequently give rise to bloody wars; for the tribe, a member of which has been thus sacrificed to the law of chance, takes up arms, and never lays them down until the most terrible reprisals have been exacted. Severed heads are borne back in triumph and solemnly hung up in the place of honour, the retaliation being celebrated by festivities which last for a month.
On one occasion, when Madame Pfeiffer had been received with profuse respect by a tribe, she found a freshly cut off head suspended over her bed, along with others already dried. She could not close her eyes. She felt in a perfect fever at being thus encompassed by frenzied men, at being smothered by the odour of these human remains, and at being lulled to rest by the sinister sound of skulls jangled together by the wind.
Yet in spite of chopped-off heads and festoons of human skulls, this lady considers the Dyaks to be honest, prudent, and endowed with some good qualities. She places them higher in the scale than the other tribes with which she had an opportunity of coming in contact. Their domestic life, which is truly patriarchal in its nature, is alluded to by her with pleasure, as are also their morality, the love they bear their offspring, and the respect evinced by the children towards their parents.
The independent Dyaks are richer than those living subservient to the Malay yoke. They cultivate rice, maize, tobacco, and sometimes the sugar cane; find in the woods Dammana resin which answers lighting purposes, and gather large harvests of sago, yams, and cocoa-nuts. Some of these productions are exchanged by them for pearl beads, brass, salt, and cloth. Their houses, or huts, are clean and well-kept (fig. 175).
A Dyak can take to himself as many wives as he pleases, but he usually contents himself with one, whom he treats well and does not burden with work. Their habits are purer and better than those of the Malays. They have no system of writing. Madame Pfeiffer did not see among them either temples or idols, priests or religious sacrifices.
Polynesian Family.
The tribes included by Dumont d’Urville under the name of Polynesians inhabit the entire eastern part of Oceania, namely, the Sandwich Islands, the Marquesas, the Friendly and Society groups, the Low Archipelago, New Zealand, etc.
The people of all these bear the closest affinity to each other. Their complexion is olive, verging on brown, but not copper-coloured; they are tall in stature, and have sinewy limbs, high foreheads, black, lively, and expressive eyes, and but slightly flattened noses. Their lips are generally larger than those of the whites, but they nevertheless have handsome mouths and splendid teeth. Their hair is black and frizzled. Throughout the whole vast expanse occupied by them they speak the same language.
Most of the tribes belonging to the Polynesian family are thorough savages, but their stock is diminishing day by day, and the final result of neighbouring civilization will be to replace the native element by European races. Meanwhile, the most cruel customs prevail among them, and even cannibalism is practised by some.
“Taboo” holds universally an important place among the populations of Oceania.
This word expresses a state of interdiction, during which the object struck with it is placed under the immediate control of the divinity. No man can infringe upon its power without becoming exposed to the most disastrous consequences, that is, unless he has impaired its action by certain formalities.
Thus, the piece of ground consecrated to a god, or which has become the burial place of a chief, is “tabooed,” and they place under the same spell a canoe which they desire to render safer for long voyages. To fight in a spot subjected to “taboo” is forbidden, and in order to prevent certain productions from becoming scarce, they are placed under similar protection. Anyone guilty of robbery or other crime, commits a fault against “taboo,” and the man who touches the dead body of a chief or anything he was in the habit of wearing, falls under a like ban, which time alone can remove, etc.
We shall allude chiefly to the aborigines of New Zealand, giving also some details about the natives of the Sandwich Islands, as well as about the Tongas, or Friendly Islanders.
New Zealanders.—The inhabitants of New Zealand, sometimes designated by the name of Maoris, are tall, robust, and of athletic frames. Their stature is generally from five feet seven inches to five feet eight inches, seldom lower, and their skin scarcely differs in colour from that of the people of the South of Europe. The expression of their countenance almost always indicates a gloomy ferocity. The face is oval, the forehead narrow, the eye large, black, and full of fire. The nose is sometimes aquiline, but oftener broad and flat, the mouth wide, the lips big, and beneath them rows of small, beautifully enamelled teeth.
The New Zealanders wear their hair long and falling in scattered locks over the face; chiefs alone take the trouble to comb it back on the head in a solitary tuft. It is rough and black, and seems occasionally reddish, because some individuals sprinkle it with powdered ochre.
Women who are not slaves possess strong vigorous figures, and are rarely under five feet and a few inches in height. The young girls have a broad face, masculine features, coarse lips frequently stained black by tattooing, a large mouth, flat nose, and uncombed hair hanging about them in disorder. Their bodies are disgustingly filthy, and impregnated with an odour of fish or of seal oil, which is revolting in the extreme.
They possess a few advantages as a set-off against the repulsiveness of this picture. The teeth of a New Zealand female are of excessive whiteness, and her black eyes beam with intelligence and fire, but household work and the birth of a family soon cause these attractions to disappear. The women have, moreover, the most deeply-rooted dirty habits. A thick layer of mud covers their bodies, which are nearly always smeared with seal or porpoise oil. Both sexes are capital swimmers.
There is little difference between the costume worn by males and females. The natives know how to weave very elegant textures from the fibres of the Phormium tenax (or New Zealand flax), and a broad mat of this material floats carelessly over their shoulders and body, while another is wrapped round the waist, descending to the knee. In winter they throw over the former garment a thick, heavy cloak generally made from the peelings of a kind of osier, but which, in the case of chiefs, consists of dogskins sewn together. These fabrics are also varied in design, some being smooth and without any pattern, while others are covered with very delicate ornamentation. The slave girls stick unthreshed slips of the Phormium tenax in their skirts, thus giving immoderate fulness to their bodies.
A warrior’s rank and bravery are denoted by a great number of little pins made of bones or green talc, which are worn across the breast at the edge of the matting. The original use of these articles was to scratch the head and kill the insects on it.
Like all the other races, the New Zealanders have a fancy for personal ornaments. They like to stick plumes in their hair, and a tuft of soft white feathers is thrust into the ears. Their unkempt locks are seldom covered by any kind of head-dress; but Lesson, the naturalist, from whom we derive these details, saw a few young girls in whom a coquettish taste was more developed, and who wore graceful wreaths of green moss.
The women adorn themselves with shell necklaces, from which little dried hippocamps are sometimes suspended. They are very fond of blue glass beads of European make. The most precious ornament of this people, however, consists of a green talc fetish, which hangs on the breast attached to some portion of a human bone. There are religious ideas connected with this amulet, and it is worn by men only.
One of the Zealanders’ superstitions is to fasten a shark’s sharp tooth to one of their ears, with the point of which the women lacerate their bosoms and faces when they happen to lose a chief or one of their relations. The greatest value attaches to these objects when they have been handed down from ancestors, and have become “tabooed,” or sacred; the happiness of a native’s whole existence seems bound up in their possession; yet they are rated as completely worthless when derived from a slain enemy.
Tattooing plays an important part among the New Zealanders, and they submit annually to the painful operation which it requires. This marking usually covers the face all over, and, as it is renewed very often, produces deep furrows stamped in regular rings, that impart the oddest expression to the countenance. Circles, one within the other, are also punctured on the lower part of the loins, and the women have a broad zone of lozenge-shaped figures engraved round their waist. Deep black lines are cut in the lips, and a design like a spear-head is traced at the angles of the mouth and in the middle of the chin. The young men draw large flies on their noses, staining them black, and the girls sketch similar insects in blue. None but slaves and persons of the lowest class are without tattooing of some sort, and it is considered a downright disgrace to have the skin in its natural state.
In a region subject to the terrible storms of the Southern Hemisphere, the dwellings ought to be, and are in fact, small and low. Villages are never found in a plain, because there they might be surprised and pillaged, but are situated in steep localities difficult of access; the huts cannot be entered except on all fours; families sheltered by them, sleep huddled together on the straw in a narrow space; and there is no furniture inside, beyond a few carved boxes, and some red wooden vessels thickly covered with designs.
The industry for which these islanders are chiefly noted, is the manufacture of matting; we have already alluded to the beautiful materials made from the fibres of the Phormium tenax by the women and girls.
The soil of New Zealand does not, like that of Equatorial Asia, furnish a large supply of edible substances. The basis of the inhabitants’ food consists of the root of a fern tree, resembling our Pteris, which covers all the plains. The natives catch a large quantity of fish in the bays along the coast, and dry or smoke the greater portion of it, in order to guard against famine in time of war, and to be provided with sustenance whenever the fury of the elements makes it impossible for them to launch their boats. Europeans have introduced several vegetables among them, which grow readily in the easily tilled and fertile land.
Their cookery is as simple as their food; they drink nothing but pure water, and hate strong liquors. Their victuals are laid on the ground, and each one eats with his fingers; the warriors, however, sometimes use instruments, made of human bones, and Lesson bought from one of them a four-pronged fork, fashioned from the large bone of a man’s right arm, minutely carved, and adorned with many raised ornaments in mother-of-pearl.
New Zealand canoes are remarkable for the carving which embellishes them. Most of these boats are hollowed from the trunk of a single tree, and are generally about forty feet long. Lesson measured a specimen, made in this way from one piece, the depth of which was three, the breadth four, and the length sixty feet. They are painted red, and have their sides festooned with birds’ feathers. The stern rises to a height of about four feet, and is covered with allegorical carvings; the prow exhibits a hideous head, with mother-of-pearl eyes and a tongue protruding to an inordinate extent, in order to show contempt for an enemy. These canoes are capable of holding about forty warriors. The oars are sharp pointed, and can be used, in case of need, as weapons against an unforeseen attack. The sails consist of reed mats, coarsely woven, and triangular in shape.
Although they are eminently warlike, the New Zealanders possess no great variety of destructive implements. Arrows are unused by them: a paton-paton, or tomahawk, of green talc, which is fastened to the wrist by a strap of hide, is the weapon above all others with which they smash or scalp the skull of their enemy. They rush headlong one against the other, and conquer by dint of sheer weight and force. The badge which betokens a priest’s functions is a heavy whalebone stick, covered with carvings. Their tokis are hatchets, also made of talc, with carefully worked handles decorated with tufts of white dog’s hair. A great many of their clubs are of extremely hard polished red wood.
In latter days the numerous tribes inhabiting the islands resorted to by English and American whalers, receive firearms in exchange for the fresh provisions with which they supply the European vessels.
The chant of the New Zealanders is solemn and monotonous, made up of hoarse, drawling, and broken notes. It is always accompanied by movements of the eyes and well-practised gestures that are very significant. Most of those chants turn upon licentious subjects. Their dance is a pantomime in which the performers seldom move from one place, and consists of postures and motions of the limbs, executed with the greatest precision. Each dance has an allegorical meaning, and is applicable to declarations of war, human sacrifices, funerals, &c.
The only musical instrument that Lesson saw in the hands of the New Zealanders was a tastefully worked wooden flute. The language of these tribes is harsh: some poems of high antiquity have been transmitted to them by oral tradition. They possess a religion, a form of worship, priests, and ceremonials. Marriages are made by purchase; a chief who had some dealings with the crew of the ship to which Lesson belonged, had bought his wife for two firelocks and a male slave.
The friendship which the aborigines of the same tribe entertain for each other is very warm, and Lesson has depicted for us the strange manner in which they evince it. When one of them came on board, and met there an intimate whom he had not seen for some time, he went up to him in solemn silence, applied the end of his own nose against that of his friend’s, and remained in that attitude for half an hour, muttering some confused sentences in a doleful tone. They then separated, and remained for the rest of the time like two men utter strangers to each other. A similar formality was observed by the women among themselves.
No race cherishes the desire of avenging an insult longer than that of which we are sketching an account; consequently, eternal hatreds and frequent wars desolate their islands.
The loss of a chief is deeply felt by the whole tribe. The funeral obsequies last for several days: should the deceased be of high rank, captives are sacrificed who will have to attend him in the other world, and the women, girls, and female slaves tear their bosoms and faces with sharp sharks’ teeth. Each tribe forms a sort of republic. The districts are ruled by a chief who has a special kind of tattooing, and who is the most generally esteemed for bravery, intrepidity, and prudence.
Lesson declares that the New Zealanders are openly and cynically cannibals; that they relish with extreme satisfaction the palpitating flesh of enemies who have fallen at their hands, and regard as a festival the day on which they can gorge themselves with human flesh. A chief expressed to Lesson the pleasure which he experienced in eating it, and indicated the brain as being the most delicate morsel, and the buttock as the most substantial.
After a victory the bodies of the chiefs who have been killed in the fight are prepared for serving up at this horrible banquet. The head belongs to the victor, the fleshy parts are eaten by the men of the tribe, and the bones are distributed among them to be made tools of. Common warriors are scalped, chopped into pieces, roasted, and devoured. Their heads, if they had any reputation, are sold to the Europeans in exchange for a little powder.
A chief’s head is preserved. If the victorious clan wishes to make peace it sends this trophy to the defeated tribe. In case the latter raises loud shouts, a reconciliation will take place, but should it preserve a gloomy silence, it is a sign that preparations are being made to avenge the chief’s death, and hostilities are recommenced. When a tribe has regained the head of its chief it preserves it religiously and venerates it; or else, knowing that it will bring a respectable sum, sells it to the Europeans.
M. Hochstetter during a recent voyage visited these same islanders. A chief of Ohinemuta, named “Pini-te-Kore-Kore” came to see the travellers. He was attired in European fashion, wore a cloak and straw hat, and carried a white banner which bore in blue letters the inscription, “Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis.” He was a Christianized chief, and modified as to exterior appearance. He had been brought up at the missionary school, was about thirty years of age, and tattooed only on the lower part of the face. He had acquired much from his French masters both in manner and demeanour, and being extremely communicative gave M. Hochstetter some curious particulars about the horrible wars to which his forefathers had devoted themselves.
For the last thirty years the conflicts have not been carried on as they were formerly, that is to say, they consist no longer in a series of duels, as it were, but of musketry firing kept up by bodies of troops, from a distance, in the European style.
The traveller had occasion to pay a visit to the Maori king “Potateau-te-Whero-Whero,” before the door of whose dwelling was posted a solitary sentinel clad in a blue uniform cloak with red facings and brass buttons, forming the whole guard of the palace. About twenty persons were assembled in a hut, where his Majesty, who was blind and bent double, sate upon a straw mat. His face, though overloaded with tattooings, was fine and regular, and a deep scar on his forehead bespoke him as a warrior who had taken part in severe battles. He was wrapped in a blanket of a dark brown colour. Like Homer’s Nausicaa, the daughters of this supreme chief of a proud and warlike race were engaged in washing. His son, seated near him, was a young man with black and sparkling eyes.
The Maori tribes had risen in rebellion a few years previously, with a desire of founding a national government as soon as they had recovered their independence. But the natives were overcome after much bloodshed, and fell again under the yoke of their former ruler.
Tongas.—The inhabitants of the Tonga or Friendly Islands resemble Europeans, but their physiognomy presents such varied expressions that it would be difficult to reduce them to a characteristic type. At the first glance flatness of the nose seems a distinguishing mark of their race, but according as we examine a large number of individuals we find the different shapes of that organ grow more numerous. It is the same with the lips, which are sometimes fleshy and sometimes thin. The hair is black; but brown and light chestnut are also to be met with. The colour of the complexion is equally changeable. Women and girls of the better classes who avoid the rays of the sun are but little coloured; the others are more or less dark.
The population of these islands has been carefully described by Dumont d’Urville in an account of the voyage which he made in command of the Astrolabe, during the years 1826, 1827, 1828, and 1829.
“The natives of the Tonga Islands,” he says, “are in general tall, well-made, and of good proportions. Their countenances are agreeable and present a variety of features that may be compared with those observable in Europe. Many have aquiline noses and rather thin lips, while the hair of nearly all is smooth. Finally, the colour of their skin is only slightly dark, especially among the chiefs. Women may be seen whose tall stature, stately step, and perfect forms are united to the most delicate features and a nearly white or merely dusky complexion.”
Cook and Forster had previously affirmed that the women of the Tonga Islands might serve as models for an artist.
In their first dealings with Europeans these aborigines displayed themselves in the most favourable light. Tasman, Cook, Maurelle, and Wilson bore witness to their gentleness, politeness, and hospitality; Cook even gave the name of “Friendly” to their islands. The crew of the Astrolabe was at first led astray by these appearances; but the natives gave many and repeated proofs that at the very moment when they were overpowering the navigators with caresses and marks of friendship, they were meditating how to attack and plunder them.
These men are also endowed with a force of character and energy by no means common. Their bravery often approaches the most reckless temerity, and they do not recoil an inch from the greatest danger. They possess, nevertheless, a general tone of suavity and courtesy, and a natural ease of manner, which no one would in the least expect to find among a people verging so closely upon the savage state. Their intelligence is more developed than that of the Tahitians. They treat their wives with kindness, have great love for their children, and profess deep respect for old age.
They make canoes which are remarkable for their proportions and the elegance and finish of their handiwork; carve whales’ teeth for necklaces, and incrust their various instruments with the same material; know how to construct houses, as well as stone vaults for the burial of their chiefs; and trace delicate chasings on their clubs with a sharpened nail fastened in a handle. The culinary art has advanced to a higher degree among them than among any other of the Polynesian islanders. They prepare from thirty to forty different dishes, consisting of pork, turtle, fowl, fish, bread-fruits, bananas, cocoa-nuts, &c., mixed according to certain processes, and dressed in different methods. The peasants till the land by means of stakes flattened and sharpened at the extremity, and furnished a little way from the end with a stirrup for supporting the foot.
The manufacture of cloth, mats, and reed baskets is the special occupation of the women. In order to make the cloth in most common use, they take a certain quantity of the inner bark of the paper-mulberry tree properly prepared, beat it flat, stain it with different vegetable colours, and print patterns of all kinds upon it. Mats of the finest quality are woven from leaves of the Pandanus; others, stronger, are made from the bark of a kind of banana-tree; those resembling horsehair are worn by the common people in the canoes to protect them against wet. Mattings of other descriptions, ornamented in different patterns, and formed from the young leaves of the cocoa-tree, are used to preserve the walls of their buildings against the inclemencies of the weather.
Women of a certain rank amuse themselves by making combs, the teeth of which are formed from the ribs of cocoa-leaves. The manufacture of thread appertains to females of the lower classes, and the material for it is extracted from the bark of the banana-tree.
These islanders tattoo their bodies in various places, especially the lower part of the stomach and the thighs, with designs which are really elegant and present a vast variety of patterns, but they leave the skin in its natural state. Their tattooing never exhibits deep incisions and does not seem to be a sign of distinction or of warlike prowess. The women only tattoo the palms of their hands.
Their houses are neatly and solidly built; the master and mistress sleep in a division apart, while the other members of the family lie upon the floor without having any fixed place. The beds and their covering are composed of matting.
The clothing of the men, like that of the women, consists of a piece of cloth six feet square, which envelopes the body in such a way as to make a turn and a half round the loins, where it is confined by a belt. Common people are satisfied with wearing an apron of foliage, or a bit of narrow stuff like a girdle.
The natives of the Friendly Islands bathe every day. Their skin, besides, is constantly saturated with perfumed cocoa-nut oil. When preparing themselves for a religious feast, a general dance, or a visit to the residence of a personage of high rank, they cover themselves with oil in such profusion that it drips from their hair.
The ornaments of both sexes consist of necklaces composed of the red fruit of the Pandanus, or fragrant flowers. Some of them hang from their necks little shells, birds’ bones, sharks’ teeth, and pieces of carved and polished whalebone or of mother-of-pearl, and high up on the arm they wear bracelets of the last material or of shells. They have also mother-of-pearl or tortoise-shell rings, and hanker greatly after glass beads, especially those of a blue colour. The lobe of their ears is pierced by large holes for the reception of small wooden cylinders about three inches in length, or of little reeds filled with a yellow powder used by the women as paint.
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.
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!
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.
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.