In Otaheite, an island in the Southern Ocean, we are presented with
women of a singular character. As far as we can recollect, we think it
is a pretty general rule, that whatever the sex are accustomed to be
constantly clothed, they are ashamed to appear naked: those of Otaheite
seem however to be an exception to this rule; to show themselves in
public, with or without clothing, appears to be to them a matter of
equal indifference, and the exposition of any part of their bodies, is
not attended with the least backwardness or reluctance; circumstances
from which we may reasonably infer, that among them, clothes were not
originally invented to cover shame, but either as ornaments, or as a
defence against the cold. But a still more striking singularity in the
character of these women, and which distinguishes them not only from the
females of all other nations, but likewise from those of almost all
other animals, is, their performing in public those rites, which in
every other part of the globe, and among almost all animals, are
performed in privacy and retirement: whether this is the effect of
innocence, or of a dissoluteness of manners to which no other people
have yet arrived, remains still to be discovered; that they are
dissolute, even beyond any thing we have hitherto recorded, is but too
certain. As polygamy is not allowed among them, to satisfy the lust of
variety, they have a society called Arreoy, in which every woman is
common to every man; and when any of these women happens to have a
child, it is smothered in the moment of its birth, that it may not
interrupt the pleasures of its infamous mother; but in this juncture,
should nature relent at so horrid a deed, even then the mother is not
allowed to save her child, unless she can find a man who will patronise
it as a father; in which case, the man is considered as having
appropriated the woman to himself, and she is accordingly extruded from
this hopeful society. These few anecdotes sufficiently characterise the
women of this island.