A professor of the fine arts—His persecutions—Something about tattooing
and tabooing—Two anecdotes in illustration of the latter—A few thoughts
on the Typee dialect.
In one of my strolls with Kory-Kory, in passing along the border of a
thick growth of bushes, my attention was arrested by a singular noise.
On entering the thicket, I witnessed for the first time the operation
of tattooing as performed by these islanders.
I beheld a man extended flat upon his back, on the ground, and, despite
the forced composure of his countenance, it was evident that he was
suffering agony. His tormentor bent over him, working away for all the
world like a stone-cutter with mallet and chisel. In one hand he held a
short slender stick, pointed with a shark’s tooth, on the upright end
of which he tapped with a small hammer-like piece of wood, thus
puncturing the skin, and charging it with the colouring matter in which
the instrument was dipped. A cocoa-nut shell containing this fluid was
placed upon the ground. It is prepared by mixing with a vegetable juice
the ashes of the “armor,” or candle-nut, always preserved for the
purpose. Beside the savage, and spread out upon a piece of soiled
tappa, were a great number of curious black-looking little implements
of bone and wood, used in the various divisions of his art. A few
terminated in a single fine point, and, like very delicate pencils,
were employed in giving the finishing touches, or in operating upon the
more sensitive portions of the body, as was the case of the present
instance. Others presented several points distributed in a line,
somewhat resembling the teeth of a saw. These were employed in the
coarser parts of the work, and particularly in pricking in straight
marks. Some presented their points disposed in small figures, and being
placed upon the body, were, by a single blow of the hammer, made to
leave their indelible impression. I observed a few, the handles of
which were mysteriously curved, as if intended to be introduced into
the orifice of the ear, with a view perhaps of beating the tattoo upon
the tympanum. Altogether, the sight of these strange instruments
recalled to mind that display of cruel-looking mother-of-pearl-handled
things which one sees in their velvet-lined cases at the elbow of a
dentist.
The artist was not at this time engaged on an original sketch, his
subject being a venerable savage, whose tattooing had become somewhat
faded with age and needed a few repairs, and accordingly he was merely
employed in touching up the works of some of the old masters of the
Typee school, as delineated upon the human canvas before him. The parts
operated upon were the eyelids, where a longitudinal streak, like the
one which adorned Kory-Kory, crossed the countenance of the victim.
In spite of all the efforts of the poor old man, sundry twitchings and
screwings of the muscles of the face denoted the exquisite sensibility
of these shutters to the windows of his soul, which he was now having
repainted. But the artist, with a heart as callous as that of an army
surgeon, continued his performance, enlivening his labours with a wild
chant, tapping away the while as merrily as a woodpecker.
So deeply engaged was he in his work, that he had not observed our
approach, until, after having enjoyed an unmolested view of the
operation, I chose to attract his attention. As soon as he perceived
me, supposing that I sought him in his professional capacity, he seized
hold of me in a paroxysm of delight, and was all eagerness to begin the
work. When, however, I gave him to understand that he had altogether
mistaken my views, nothing could exceed his grief and disappointment.
But recovering from this, he seemed determined not to credit my
assertion, and grasping his implements, he flourished them about in
fearful vicinity to my face, going through an imaginary performance of
his art, and every moment bursting into some admiring exclamation at
the beauty of his designs.
Horrified at the bare thought of being rendered hideous for life if the
wretch were to execute his purpose upon me, I struggled to get away
from him, while Kory-Kory, turning traitor, stood by, and besought me
to comply with the outrageous request. On my reiterated refusals the
excited artist got half beside himself, and was overwhelmed with sorrow
at losing so noble an opportunity of distinguishing himself in his
profession.
The idea of engrafting his tattooing upon my white skin filled him with
all a painter’s enthusiasm: again and again he gazed into my
countenance, and every fresh glimpse seemed to add to the vehemence of
his ambition. Not knowing to what extremities he might proceed, and
shuddering at the ruin he might inflict upon my figurehead, I now
endeavoured to draw off his attention from it, and holding out my arm
in a fit of desperation, signed to him to commence operations. But he
rejected the compromise indignantly, and still continued his attack on
my face, as though nothing short of that would satisfy him. When his
forefinger swept across my features, in laying out the borders of those
parallel bands which were to encircle my countenance, the flesh fairly
crawled upon my bones. At last, half wild with terror and indignation,
I succeeded in breaking away from the three savages, and fled towards
old Marheyo’s house, pursued by the indomitable artist, who ran after
me, implements in hand. Kory-Kory, however, at last interfered, and
drew him off from the chase.
This incident opened my eyes to a new danger; and I now felt convinced
that in some luckless hour I should be disfigured in such a manner as
never more to have the _face_ to return to my countrymen, even should
an opportunity offer.
These apprehensions were greatly increased by the desire which King
Mehevi and several of the inferior chiefs now manifested that I should
be tattooed. The pleasure of the king was first signified to me some
three days after my casual encounter with Karky the artist. Heavens!
what imprecations I showered upon that Karky. Doubtless he had plotted
a conspiracy against me and my countenance, and would never rest until
his diabolical purpose was accomplished. Several times I met him in
various parts of the valley, and, invariably, whenever he descried me,
he came running after me with his mallet and chisel, flourishing them
about my face as if he longed to begin. What an object he would have
made of me!
When the king first expressed his wish to me, I made known to him my
utter abhorrence of the measure, and worked myself into such a state of
excitement, that he absolutely stared at me in amazement. It evidently
surpassed his majesty’s comprehension how any sober-minded and sensible
individual could entertain the least possible objection to so
beautifying an operation.
Soon afterwards he repeated his suggestion, and meeting with a like
repulse, showed some symptoms of displeasure at my obduracy. On his a
third time renewing his request, I plainly perceived that something
must be done, or my visage was ruined for ever; I therefore screwed up
my courage to the sticking point, and declared my willingness to have
both arms tattooed from just above the wrist to the shoulder. His
majesty was greatly pleased at the proposition, and I was
congratulating myself with having thus compromised the matter, when he
intimated that as a thing of course my face was first to undergo the
operation. I was fairly driven to despair; nothing but the utter ruin
of my “face divine,” as the poets call it, would, I perceived, satisfy
the inexorable Mehevi and his chiefs, or rather that infernal Karky,
for he was at the bottom of it all.
The only consolation afforded me was a choice of patterns: I was at
perfect liberty to have my face spanned by three horizontal bars, after
the fashion of my serving-man’s; or to have as many oblique stripes
slanting across it: or if, like a true courtier, I chose to model my
style on that of royalty, I might wear a sort of freemason badge upon
my countenance in the shape of a mystic triangle. However, I would have
none of these, though the king most earnestly impressed upon my mind
that my choice was wholly unrestricted. At last, seeing my
unconquerable repugnance, he ceased to importune me.
But not so some other of the savages. Hardly a day passed but I was
subjected to their annoying requests, until at last my existence became
a burden to me; the pleasures I had previously enjoyed no longer
afforded me delight, and all my former desire to escape from the valley
now revived with additional force.
A fact which I soon afterwards learned augmented my apprehension. The
whole system of tattooing was, I found, connected with their religion;
and it was evident, therefore, that they were resolved to make a
convert of me.
In the decoration of the chiefs, it seems to be necessary to exercise
the most elaborate pencilling; while some of the inferior natives
looked as if they had been daubed over indiscriminately with a
house-painter’s brush. I remember one fellow who prided himself hugely
upon a great oblong patch, placed high upon his back, and who always
reminded me of a man with a blister of Spanish flies stuck between his
shoulders. Another whom I frequently met had the hollow of his eyes
tattooed in two regular squares, and his visual organs being remarkably
brilliant, they gleamed forth from out this setting like a couple of
diamonds inserted in ebony.
Although convinced that tattooing was a religious observance, still the
nature of the connection between it and the superstitious idolatry of
the people was a point upon which I could never obtain any information.
Like the still more important system of the “Taboo,” it always appeared
inexplicable to me.
There is a marked similarity, almost an identity, between the religious
institutions of most of the Polynesian islands, and in all exists the
mysterious “Taboo,” restricted in its uses to a greater or less extent.
So strange and complex in its arrangements is this remarkable system,
that I have in several cases met with individuals who, after residing
for years among the islands in the Pacific, and acquiring a
considerable knowledge of the language, have nevertheless been
altogether unable to give any satisfactory account of its operations.
Situated as I was in the Typee valley, I perceived every hour the
effects of this all-controlling power, without in the least
comprehending it. Those effects were, indeed, wide-spread and
universal, pervading the most important as well as the minutest
transactions of life. The savage, in short, lives in the continual
observance of its dictates, which guide and control every action of his
being.
For several days after entering the valley I had been saluted at least
fifty times in the twenty-four hours with the talismanic word “Taboo”
shrieked in my ears, at some gross violation of its provisions, of
which I had unconsciously been guilty. The day after our arrival I
happened to hand some tobacco to Toby over the head of a native who sat
between us. He started up, as if stung by an adder; while the whole
company, manifesting an equal degree of horror, simultaneously screamed
out “Taboo!” I never again perpetrated a similar piece of ill-manners,
which, indeed, was forbidden by the canons of good breeding, as well as
by the mandates of the taboo. But it was not always so easy to perceive
wherein you had contravened the spirit of this institution. I was many
times called to order, if I may use the phrase, when I could not for
the life of me conjecture what particular offence I had committed.
One day I was strolling through a secluded portion of the valley, and
hearing the musical sound of the cloth-mallet at a little distance, I
turned down a path that conducted me in a few moments to a house where
there were some half-dozen girls employed in making tappa. This was an
operation I had frequently witnessed, and had handled the bark in all
the various stages of its preparation. On the present occasion the
females were intent upon their occupation, and after looking up and
talking gaily to me for a few moments, they resumed their employment. I
regarded them for awhile in silence, and then, carelessly picking up a
handful of the material that lay around, proceeded unconsciously to
pick it apart. While thus engaged, I was suddenly startled by a scream,
like that of a whole boarding-school of young ladies just on the point
of going into hysterics. Leaping up with the idea of seeing a score of
Happar warriors about to perform anew the Sabine atrocity, I found
myself confronted by the company of girls, who, having dropped their
work, stood before me with starting eyes, swelling bosoms, and fingers
pointed in horror towards me.
Thinking that some venomous reptile must be concealed in the bark which
I held in my hand, I began cautiously to separate and examine it.
Whilst I did so the horrified girls redoubled their shrieks. Their wild
cries and frightened motions actually alarmed me, and throwing down the
tappa, I was about to rush from the house, when in the same instant
their clamours ceased, and one of them, seizing me by the arm, pointed
to the broken fibres that had just fallen from my grasp, and screamed
in my ears the fatal word “Taboo!”
I subsequently found out that the fabric they were engaged in making
was of a peculiar kind, destined to be worn on the heads of the
females, and through every stage of its manufacture was guarded by a
vigorous taboo, which interdicted the whole masculine gender from even
so much as touching it.
Frequently in walking through the groves I observed bread-fruit and
cocoa-nut trees, with a wreath of leaves twined in a peculiar fashion
about their trunks. This was the mark of the taboo. The trees
themselves, their fruit, and even the shadows they cast upon the
ground, were consecrated by its presence. In the same way a pipe, which
the king had bestowed upon me, was rendered sacred in the eyes of the
natives, none of whom could I ever prevail upon to smoke from it. The
bowl was encircled by a woven band of grass, somewhat resembling those
Turks’ heads occasionally worked in the handles of our whip-stalks.
A similar badge was once braided about my wrist by the royal hand of
Mehevi himself, who, as soon as he had concluded the operation,
pronounced me “Taboo.” This occurred shortly after Toby’s
disappearance; and were it not that from the first moment I had entered
the valley the natives had treated me with uniform kindness, I should
have supposed that their conduct afterwards was to be ascribed to the
fact that I received this sacred investiture.
The capricious operations of the taboo are not its least remarkable
feature: to enumerate them all would be impossible. Black hogs—infants
to a certain age—women in an interesting situation—young men while the
operation of tattooing their faces is going on—and certain parts of the
valley during the continuance of a shower—are alike fenced about by the
operation of the taboo.
I witnessed a striking instance of its effects in the bay of Tior, my
visit to which place occurred a few days before leaving the ship. On
that occasion our worthy captain formed one of the party. He was a most
insatiable sportsman. Outward bound, and off the pitch of Cape Horn, he
used to sit on the taffrail, and keep the steward loading three or four
old fowling-pieces, with which he would bring down albatrosses, Cape
pigeons, jays, petrels, and divers other marine fowl, who followed
chattering in our wake. The sailors were struck aghast at his impiety,
and one and all attributed our forty days’ beating about that horrid
headland to his sacrilegious slaughter of these inoffensive birds.
At Tior, he evinced the same disregard for the religious prejudices of
the islanders as he had previously shown for the superstitions of the
sailors. Having heard that there were a considerable number of fowls in
the valley—the progeny of some cocks and hens accidentally left there
by an English vessel, and which, being strictly tabooed, flew about
almost in a wild state—he determined to break through all restraints,
and be the death of them. Accordingly, he provided himself with a most
formidable-looking gun, and announced his landing on the beach by
shooting down a noble cock, that was crowing what proved to be his own
funeral dirge on the limb of an adjoining tree. “Taboo,” shrieked the
affrighted savages. “Oh, hang your taboo,” says the nautical sportsman;
“talk taboo to the marines”; and bang went the piece again, and down
came another victim. At this the natives ran scampering through the
groves, horror-struck at the enormity of the act.
All that afternoon the rocky sides of the valley rang with successive
reports, and the superb plumage of many a beautiful fowl was ruffled by
the fatal bullet. Had it not been that the French admiral, with a large
party, was then in the glen, I have no doubt that the natives, although
their tribe was small and dispirited, would have inflicted summary
vengeance upon the man who thus outraged their most sacred
institutions; as it was, they contrived to annoy him not a little.
Thirsting with his exertions, the skipper directed his steps to a
stream; but the savages, who had followed at a little distance,
perceiving his object, rushed towards him and forced him away from its
bank—his lips would have polluted it. Wearied at last, he sought to
enter a house that he might rest for awhile on the mats; its inmates
gathered tumultuously about the door and denied him admittance. He
coaxed and blustered by turns, but in vain; the natives were neither to
be intimidated nor appeased, and as a final resort he was obliged to
call together his boat’s crew, and pull away from what he termed the
most infernal place he ever stepped upon.
Lucky was it for him and for us that we were not honoured on our
departure by a salute of stones from the hands of the exasperated
Tiors. In this way, on the neighbouring island of Ropo, were killed,
but a few weeks previously, and for a nearly similar offence, the
master and three of the crew of the K——.
I cannot determine, with anything approaching to certainty, what power
it is that imposes the taboo. When I consider the slight disparity of
condition among the islanders—the very limited and inconsiderable
prerogatives of the king and chiefs—and the loose and indefinite
functions of the priesthood, most of whom were hardly to be
distinguished from the rest of their countrymen, I am wholly at a loss
where to look for the authority which regulates this potent
institution. It is imposed upon something to-day, and withdrawn
to-morrow; while its operations in other cases are perpetual. Sometimes
its restrictions only affect a single individual—sometimes a particular
family—sometimes a whole tribe; and, in a few instances, they extend
not merely over the various clans on a single island, but over all the
inhabitants of an entire group. In illustration of this latter
peculiarity, I may cite the law which forbids a female to enter a
canoe—a prohibition which prevails upon all the northern Marquesas
Islands.
The word itself (taboo) is used in more than one signification. It is
sometimes used by a parent to his child, when, in the exercise of
parental authority, he forbids it to perform a particular action.
Anything opposed to the ordinary customs of the islanders, although not
expressly prohibited, is said to be “taboo.”
The Typee language is one very difficult to be acquired; it bears a
close resemblance to the other Polynesian dialects, all of which show a
common origin. The duplication of words, as “lumee lumee,” “poee poee,”
“muee muee,” is one of their peculiar features. But another, and a more
annoying one, is the different sense in which one and the same word is
employed; its various meanings all have a certain connection, which
only makes the matter more puzzling. So one brisk, lively little word
is obliged, like a servant in a poor family, to perform all sorts of
duties. For instance—one particular combination of syllables expresses
the ideas of sleep, rest, reclining, sitting, leaning, and all other
things anyways analogous thereto, the particular meaning being shown
chiefly by a variety of gestures, and the eloquent expression of the
countenance.