clothes than a sash, which covers their natural parts. However, the
chief people among them generally wrap themselves in a great piece of
cloth, which hangs down to their knees. This is likewise the only dress
of the women; and they know how to place it so artfully, as to make this
simple dress susceptible of coquetry. As the women of Taiti never go out
into the sun, without being covered; and always have a little hat, made
of canes, and adorned with flowers, to defend their faces against its
rays; their complexions are, of course, much fairer than those of the
men. Their features are very delicate; but what distinguishes them, is
the beauty of their bodies, of which the _contour_ has not been
disfigured by a torture of fifteen years duration.
[Sidenote: Custom of puncturing the skin.]
Whilst the women in Europe paint their cheeks red, those of Taiti dye
their loins and buttocks of a deep blue. This is an ornament, and at the
same time a mark of distinction. The men are subject to the same
fashion. I cannot say how they do to impress these indelible marks,
unless it is by puncturing the skin, and pouring the juice of certain
herbs upon it, as I have seen it practised by the natives of Canada. It
is remarkable, that this custom of painting has always been found to be
received among nations who bordered upon a state of nature. When Cæsar
made his first descent upon England, he found this fashion established
there; _omnes vero Britanni se vitro insiciunt, quod cæruleum efficit
Colorem_. The learned and ingenious author of the _Recherches
philosophiques sur les Americains_[101], thinks this general custom owes
its rise to the necessity of defending the body from the puncture of
insects, multiplying beyond conception in uncultivated countries. This
cause, however, does not exist at Taiti, since, as we have already said
above, the people there are not troubled with such insupportable
insects. The custom of painting is accordingly a mere fashion, the same
as at Paris. Another custom at Taiti, common to men and women, is, to
pierce their ears, and to wear in them pearls or flowers of all sorts.
The greatest degree of cleanliness further adorns this amiable nation;
they constantly bathe, and never eat nor drink without washing before
and after it.
[Sidenote: Interior policy.]
The character of the nation has appeared mild and beneficent to us.
Though the isle is divided into many little districts, each of which has
its own master, yet there does not seem to be any civil war, or any
private hatred in the isle. It is probable, that the people of Taiti
deal amongst each other with unquestioned sincerity. Whether they be at
home or no, by day or by night, their houses are always open. Every one
gathers fruits from the first tree he meets with, or takes some in any
house into which he enters. It should seem as if, in regard to things
absolutely necessary for the maintainance of life, there was no personal
property amongst them, and that they all had an equal right to those
articles. In regard to us, they were expert thieves; but so fearful, as
to run away at the least menace. It likewise appeared, that the chiefs
disapproved of their thefts, and that they desired us to kill those who
committed them. Ereti, however, did not himself employ that severity
which he recommended to us. When we pointed out a thief to him, he
himself pursued him as fast as possible; the man fled; and if he was
overtaken, which was commonly the case, for Ereti was indefatigable in
the pursuit, some lashes, and a forced restitution of the stolen goods,
was all the punishment inflicted on the guilty. I at first believed they
knew of no greater punishment; for when they saw that some of our people
were put in irons, they expressed great concern for them; but I have
since learnt, that they have undoubtedly the custom of hanging thieves
upon trees, as it is practised in our armies.
[Sidenote: They are at war with the neighbouring islands.]
They are almost constantly at war with the inhabitants of the
neighbouring isles. We have seen the great periaguas, which they make
use of to make descents, and even in sea-fights. Their arms are the bow,
the sling, and a kind of pike of a very hard wood. They make war in a
very cruel manner. According to Aotourou’s information, they kill all
the men and male children taken in battle; they strip the skins, with
the beards from the chins, and carry them off as trophies of their
victory, only preferring the wives and daughters of their enemies, whom
the conquerors do not disdain to admit to their bed. Aotourou himself is
the son of a chief of Taiti, and of a captive woman from the isle of
Oopoa, which is near Taiti, and often at war with its inhabitants. To
this mixture I attribute the difference of the races we have observed
among them. I am not acquainted with their method of healing wounds: our
surgeons admired the scars which they saw.
[Sidenote: Important custom.]
I shall, towards the end of this chapter, give an account of what I have
been able to discover, concerning their form of government, the extent
of the power of their petty sovereigns, the kind of distinction existing
between the men of note and the common people; and, lastly, the ties
which unite together, under the same authority, this multitude of robust
men, whose wants are so few. I shall only observe here, that in matters
of consequence, the lord of the district does not give his decision
without the advice of a council. I have mentioned above, that a
deliberation of the people of note in the nation was required on the
subject of our establishing a camp on shore. I must add too, that the
chief seems to be implicitly obeyed by every body; and that the men of
note have likewise people to serve them, and over whom they have an
authority.
[Illustration:
_Canoe, of the isle of Navigators, under sail._
_Indian Canoe, of the isle of Choiseul._
_Canoe, of the isle of Taiti, under sail._
]
[Sidenote: Customs on the subject of their dead.]
It is very difficult to give an account of their religion. We have seen
wooden statues among them, which we took for idols; but how did they
worship them? The only religious ceremony, which we have been witnesses
to, concerns the dead. They preserve their corpses a long while,
extended on a kind of scaffold, covered by a shed. The infection which
they spread does not prevent the women from going to weep around the
corpse, during part of the day, and from anointing the cold relicks of
their affection with cocoa-nut oil. Those women, with whom we were
acquainted, would sometimes allow us to come near these places, which
are consecrated to the manes of the deceased; they told us _emoé_, he
sleeps. When nothing but the skeletons remain, they carry them into
their houses, and I do not know how long they keep them there. I only
know, because I have seen it, that then a man of consideration among the
people comes to exercise his sacred rites there; and that in these awful
ceremonies, he wears ornaments which are much in request.
[Sidenote: Superstition of the islanders.]
We have asked Aotourou many questions concerning his religion; and
believe, we understood that, in general his countrymen are very
superstitious; that the priests have the highest authority amongst them;
that besides a superior being, named _Eri-t-Era_, king of the sun or of
light, and whom they do not represent by any material image, they have
several divinities; some beneficent, others mischievous; that the name
of these divinities or genii is _Eatoua_; that they suppose, that at
each important action of human life, there presides a good and an evil
genius; and that they decide its good or bad success. What we understand
with certainty is, that when the moon has a certain aspect, which they
call _Malama Tamai_, or moon in state of war[102], (an aspect in which
we have not been able to distinguish any characteristic mark, by which
it could be defined) they sacrifice human victims. Of all their customs,
one which most surprised me, is that of saluting those who sneeze by
saying, _Evaroua-t-eatoua_, that the good _eatoua_ may awaken thee, or
that the evil _eatoua_ may not lull thee asleep. These are marks which
prove, that they have the same origin with the people of the old
continent. Upon the whole, scepticism is reasonable, especially when we
treat of the religion of different nations; as there is no subject in
which it is more easy to be deceived by appearances.
[Sidenote: Polygamy.]
Polygamy seems established amongst them; at least it is so amongst the
chief people. As love is their only passion, the great number of women
is the only luxury of the opulent. Their children are taken care of,
both by their fathers and their mothers. It is not the custom at Taiti,
that the men occupied only with their fishery and their wars, leave to
the weaker sex the toilsome works of husbandry and agriculture. Here a
gentle indolence falls to the share of the women; and the endeavours to
please, are their most serious occupation. I cannot say whether their
marriage is a civil contract, or whether it is consecrated by religion;
whether it is indissoluble, or subject to the laws of divorce. Be this
as it will, the wives owe their husbands a blind submission; they would
wash with their blood any infidelity committed without their husbands’
consent. That, it is true, is easily obtained; and jealousy is so
unknown a passion here, that the husband is commonly the first who
persuades his wife to yield to another. An unmarried woman suffers no
constraint on that account; every thing invites her to follow the
inclination of her heart, or the instinct of her sensuality; and public
applause honours her defeat: nor does it appear, that how great soever
the number of her previous lovers may have been, it should prove an
obstacle to her meeting with a husband afterwards. Then wherefore should
she resist the influence of the climate, or the seduction of examples?
The very air which the people breathe, their songs, their dances, almost
constantly attended with indecent postures, all conspire to call to mind
the sweets of love, all engage to give themselves up to them. They dance
to the sound of a kind of drum, and when they sing, they accompany their
voices with a very soft kind of flute, with three or four holes, which,
as I have observed above, they blow with their nose. They likewise
practise a kind of wrestling; which, at the same time, is both exercise
and play to them.
[Sidenote: Character of the islanders.]
Thus accustomed to live continually immersed in pleasure, the people of
Taiti have acquired a witty and humorous temper, which is the offspring
of ease and of joy. They likewise contracted from the same source a
character of fickleness, which constantly amazed us. Every thing strikes
them, yet nothing fixes their attention: amidst all the new objects,
which we presented to them, we could never succeed in making them attend
for two minutes together to any one. It seems as if the least reflection
is a toilsome labour for them, and that they are still more averse to
the exercises of the mind, than to those of the body.
[Sidenote: Account of some of their works.]
I shall not, however, accuse them of want of understanding. Their skill
and ingenuity in the few necessary instances of industry, which
notwithstanding the abundance of the country, and the temperature of the
climate they cannot dispense with, would be sufficient to destroy such
assertion. It is amazing with how much art their fishing tackle is
contrived; their hooks are made of mother-of-pearl, as neatly wrought as
if they were made by the help of our tools; their nets are exactly like
ours; and knit with threads, taken from the great American _Aloes_. We
admired the construction of their extensive houses, and the disposition
of the leaves of the _Thatch-palm_, with which they are covered.
[Sidenote: Construction of their boats.]
They have two sorts of periaguas; some are little, and without much
ornament; being made of a single stem of a tree hollowed out; the others
are much larger, and wrought with much art. A hollow tree forms the
bottom of the periagua; from the head, to two-thirds of the intended
length, another tree forms the back part, which is bent, and greatly
elevated; in so much, that the extremity of the stern rises five or fix
feet above the water. These two pieces are joined together, as an arch
of a circle; and as they have no nails to fasten them together with,
they pierce the extremity of both pieces in several places, and by the
means of strings, (made of the filaments which surround cocoa-nuts) they
tie them together. The sides of the periagua are raised by two boards,
about one foot broad, sewed to the bottom, and to each other, with the
preceding sort of strings. They fill the seams with the fibrous
substance round cocoa-nuts; but do not cover or pay them with any
coating. A plank, which covers the head of the periagua, and projects
about five or six feet beyond it, prevents its plunging entirely into
the water, when there is a great sea. To make these light boats less
subject to overset, they fix an out-rigger to one of its sides. This is
nothing more than a pretty long piece of wood, supported by two cross
pieces, of about four or five feet in length; the other end of which is
fastened to the periagua. When she is sailing, a plank projects along
the side, opposite to the out-rigger; a rope is fastened to it, which
supports the mast, and it likewise makes the periagua stiffer, by
placing a man or a weight at the end of the plank.
Their ingenuity appears still more to advantage in the means they employ
to render these vessels proper to transport them to the neighbouring
isles, with which they have a communication, having no other guides than
the stars on such navigations. They fasten two great periaguas together
alongside of each other, (leaving about four feet distance between them)
by means, of some cross pieces of wood tied very fast to the starboard
of one and larboard of the other boat. Over the stern of these two
vessels thus joined, they place a hut, of a very light construction,
covered by a roof of reeds. This apartment shelters them from the sun
and rain, and at the same time affords them a proper place for keeping
their provisions dry. These double periaguas can contain a great number
of persons, and are never in danger of oversetting. We have always seen
the chiefs make use of them; they are navigated both by a sail and by
oars, as the single periaguas: the sails are composed of mats, extended
on a square frame, formed by canes, of which one of the angles is
rounded.
The Taiti people have no other tool for all these works than a chissel,
the blade of which is made of a very hard black stone[103]. It is
exactly of the same form as that of our carpenters, and they use it with
great expertness: they use very sharp pieces of shells to bore holes
into the wood.
[Sidenote: Their cloths.]
The manufacturing of that singular cloth, of which their dress is made
up, is likewise one of their greatest arts. It is prepared from the rind
of a shrub, which all the inhabitants cultivate around their houses. A
square piece of hard wood, fluted on its four sides by furrows of
different sizes, is made use of in beating the bark on a smooth board:
they sprinkle some water on it during this operation, and thus they at
last form a very equal fine cloth, of the nature of paper, but much more
pliable, and less apt to be torn, to which they give a great breadth.
They have several sorts of it, of a greater or less thickness, but all
manufactured from the same substance: I am not acquainted with their
methods of dying them.
[Sidenote: Account of the Taiti-man,
whom I brought to France.]
I shall conclude this chapter in exculpating myself, for people oblige
me to use this word, for having profited of the good will of Aotourou,
and taken him on a voyage, which he certainly did not expect to be of
such a length; and likewise, in giving an account of the information he
has given me concerning his country, during the time that he has been
with me.
[Sidenote: Reasons for which I took him.]
The zeal of this islander to follow us was unfeigned. The very first day
of our arrival at Taiti, he manifested it to us in the most expressive
manner, and the nation seemed to applaud his project. As we were forced
to sail through an unknown ocean, and sure to owe all the assistance and
refreshments on which our life depended, to the humanity of the people
we should meet with, it was of great consequence to us to take a man on
board from one of the most considerable islands in this ocean. It was to
be supposed that he spoke the same language as his neighbours, that his
manners were the same, and that his credit with them would be decisive
in our favour, when he should inform them of our proceedings towards his
countrymen, and our behaviour to him. Besides, supposing our country
would profit of an union with a powerful people, living in the middle of
the finest countries in the world, we could have no better pledge to
cement such an alliance, than the eternal obligation which we were going
to confer on this nation, by sending back their fellow-countryman well
treated by us, and enriched by the useful knowledge which he would bring
them. Would to God that the necessity and the zeal which inspired us,
may not prove fatal to the bold Aotourou!
[Sidenote: His stay at Paris.]
I have spared neither money nor trouble to make his stay at Paris
agreeable and useful to him. He has been there eleven months, during
which he has not given any mark at all of being tired of his stay. The
desire of seeing him has been very violent; idle curiosity, which has
served only to give false ideas to men whose constant practice it is to
traduce others, who never went beyond the capital, never examine any
thing; and who being influenced by errors of all sorts, never cast an
impartial eye upon any object; and yet pretend to decide with
magisterial severity, and without appeal! How, said some of them to me,
in this man’s country the people speak neither French, nor English, nor
Spanish? What could I answer them? I was struck dumb; however, it was
not on account of the surprize at hearing such a question asked. I was
used to them, because I knew that at my arrival, many of those who even
pass for people of abilities, maintained that I had not made the voyage
round the world, because I had not been in China. Some other sharp
critics conceived and propagated a very mean idea of the poor islander,
because, after a stay of two years amongst Frenchmen, he could hardly
speak a few words of the language. Do not we see every day, said they,
that the Italians, English, and Germans learn the French in so short a
time as one year at Paris? I could have answered them perhaps with some
reason, that, besides the physical obstacle in the organs of speech of
this islander, (which shall be mentioned in the sequel) which prevented
his becoming conversant in our language, he was at least thirty years
old; that his memory had never been exercised by any kind of study, nor
had his mind ever been at work; that indeed an Italian, an Englishman, a
German could in a year’s time speak a French jargon tolerably well, but
that was not strange at all, as these strangers had a grammar like ours,
as their moral, physical, political, and social ideas were the same with
ours, and all expressed by certain words in their language as they are
in French; that they had accordingly no more than a translation to fix
in their memory, which had been exerted from their very infancy. The
Taiti-man, on the contrary, only having a small number of ideas,
relative on the one hand to a most simple and most limited society, and
on the other, to wants which are reduced to the smallest number
possible; he would have been obliged, first of all, as I may say, to
create a world of previous ideas, in a mind which is as indolent as his
body, before he could come so far as to adapt to them the words in our
language, by which they are expressed. All this I might perhaps have
answered: but this detail required some minutes of time, and I have
always observed, that, loaded with questions as I was, whenever I was
going to answer, the persons that had honoured me with them were already
far from me. But it is common in a capital to meet with people who ask
questions, not from an impulse of curiosity, or from a desire of
acquiring knowledge, but as judges who are preparing to pronounce their
judgment; and whether they hear the answer or no, it does not prevent
them from giving their decision[104].
However, though Aotourou could hardly blabber out some words of our
language, yet he went out by himself every day, and passed through the
whole town without once missing or losing his way. He often made some
purchases, and hardly ever paid for things beyond their real value. The
only shew which pleased him, was the opera, for he was excessively fond
of dancing. He knew perfectly well upon what days this kind of
entertainment was played; he went thither by himself, paid at the door
the same as every body else, and his favourite place was in the
galleries behind the boxes[105]. Among the great number of persons who
have been desirous of seeing him, he always distinguished those who were
obliging towards him, and his grateful heart never forgot them. He was
particularly attached to the duchess of Choiseul, who has loaded him
with favours, and especially shewed marks of concern and friendship for
him, to which he was infinitely more sensible than to presents.
Therefore, he would, of his own accord, go to visit this generous
benefactress as often as he heard that she was come to town.
[Sidenote: His departure from France.]
He left Paris in March, 1770, and embarked at Rochelle, on board the
Brisson, which was to carry him to the Isle de France. [Sidenote: Steps
taken to send him home.] During this voyage he has been trusted to the
care of a merchant, who went a passenger in the same ship, which he had
equipped in part. The ministry have sent orders to the governor and the
intendant of the Isle of France, to send Aotourou home to his isle from
thence. I have given a very minute account of the course that must be
taken in order to go thither, and thirty-six thousand francs, (about
fifteen hundred pounds sterling) which is the third part of my whole
fortune, towards the equipment of the ship intended for this navigation.
The duchess of Choiseul has been so humane as to consecrate a sum of
money for bringing to Taiti a great number of the most necessary tools,
a quantity of seeds, and a number of cattle; and the king of Spain has
been pleased to permit that this ship might, if necessary, touch at the
Philippines. O may Aotounou soon see his countrymen again!—I shall now
give an account of what I have learnt in my conversations with him,
concerning the customs of his country.
[Sidenote: Farther accounts of the customs of Taiti.]
I have already observed that the Taiti people acknowledge a supreme
Being, who cannot be represented by any factitious image, and inferior
divinities of two classes, represented by wooden figures. They pray at
sun-rise and at sun-set; but they have besides a great number of
superstitious practices, in order to conciliate the influence of the
evil genii. The comet, visible at Paris in 1769, and which Aotourou has
very well taken notice of, has given me an opportunity of learning that
the people of Taiti know this kind of stars, which do not appear again,
as Aotourou said, till after a great number of moons. They call comets
_evetou-eave_, and do not combine any sinister ideas with their
apparition. Those meteors, however, which are here called shooting
stars, are known to the people of Taiti by the name of _epao_, and are
by them thought to be evil genii _eatoua toa_.
The better instructed people of this nation (without being astronomers,
as our gazettes have pretended) have, however, a name for every
remarkable constellation; they know their diurnal motion, and direct
their course at sea by them, from isle to isle. In these navigations,
which sometimes extend three hundred leagues, they lose all sight of
land. Their compass is the sun’s course in day-time, and the position of
the stars during the nights, which are almost always fair between the
tropics.
[Sidenote: Neighbouring isles.]
Aotourou has mentioned several isles to me; some of which are allies of,
and others at war with Taiti. The friendly isles are Aimeo, Maoroua,
Aca, Oumaitia, and Tapouamassou. The enemies isles are Papara, Aiatea,
Otaa, Toumaraa, Oopoa. These isles are as big as Taiti.