tie, or even a dignified state. It was held to serve only the purposes
of nature and the pleasures of the men. With all, indeed, except
the rich, it was a mere unceremonious bargain, in which the woman
was purchased, though the parents usually made a present to their
son-in-law. Among the nobler orders of society there was a little more
parade, though an equal absence of sanctity. A person with a beautiful
daughter brought her to some chief, saying, “Here is a wife for you.”
If she pleased him he took her from her father’s hands, placed her
under the care of a confidential servant, and had her fattened, until
old and plump enough for marriage. All her friends assembled with his
at the temple, and proceeded to the altar. The bride, with a rope
hanging about her neck, was accompanied by a man bearing a bunch of
the fragrant fern. Prayers were muttered, and blessing invoked upon
the union. Then the names of their ancestors were whispered, and at
each one of the leaves was torn. The nearest kinsman of the woman next
loosened the rope from about her neck, and delivered her over to the
bridegroom, bidding him take her home. Presents of various kinds were
made to the newly-married pair, but, with all this ceremony, the tie
was merely one of convenience. Within a month the man might tire of
his partner and wish to be rid of her. All he had to do was to desire
her departure, saying, “It is enough--go away.” She immediately left
him, and almost invariably became a prostitute. This process might
be repeated as often as he pleased. The caprice of the male sex thus
threw numbers of the females into a necessity of supporting themselves
by the public hire of their persons. For, although polygamy existed,
it was practised only by the rich, since the facility of divorce
rendered it more convenient to take one wife, dwell with her a short
time, and abandon her for another, than to be troubled or burdened
with several at the same time. The wealthy, however, took numerous
concubines--indulging in this luxury more than any of the other
islanders. In all their customs and national characteristics, if we
desire to view them in their original form, we must contemplate the
people of those islands as they were twenty years ago. A great change
is now apparent among them. The accounts, therefore, published at that
period, though improved by later inquiries, afford us the information
we are in search of. We are not surprised to find an indolent
licentious people, as they were, when under no restraint, addicted to
the most odious forms of vice. One natural result of their manner of
life was infanticide. It was practised to a frightful extent, and was
encouraged by a variety of causes. In the first place, poverty and
idleness often induced parents to destroy their children--choosing
to suffer that short pang of natural sorrow than the long struggles
with starvation which awaited the indigent--even in those prolific
islands. Next the common licentiousness produced innumerable bastards,
which were generally killed. Thirdly, the social institutions of the
country, with the division of classes, contributed to increase the
prevalence of the custom--for the fruit of all unequal matches was
cast aside. Superstition also aided it, for the priests demanded for
their gods frequent oblations of infant blood. The missionary Williams
was informed that, from the constant occurrence of wars, women, being
abandoned by their husbands, slew their children, whom they knew not
how to support. When a man married a girl of inferior rank, two, four,
or six of her children were sacrificed before she could claim equality
with him, and should she bear any more they were spared. Vanity, too,
exercised its influence, for, as nursing impaired the beauty of the
women, they sought to preserve their attractions by sparing themselves
the labour. Perhaps, however, we should not lay it to the charge of
vanity. The miserable women of these islands found in the flower of
their persons the only chance of attachment or respect from their
husbands. When this had faded, nothing could save them from neglect.
Whatever the cause, the extent of the practice was fearful.
Three-fourths of the children were destroyed, and sometimes in the
most atrocious manner. A wet cloth placed on the infant’s mouth, the
hands clenched round its throat, or the earth heaped over it while
alive in a grave, were among the most humane. Others broke the infant’s
joints, one by one, until it expired. This was usually the plan of
the professional child-killers, of whom there was a class--male and
female--though the parents often performed the office themselves.
Before the establishment of Christianity, Williams declares he never
conversed with a woman who had not destroyed one or two of her
offspring. Many confessed to him, as well as to Wilmer, that they had
killed, some three, some five, some nine, and one seventeen.
Connected with infanticide was one of the most extraordinary
institutions ever established in a savage or a civilized country. This
was the Areoi Society. It was at once the source of their greatest
amusements and their greatest sorrow, and was strictly confined to
the Society group, though indications of a similar thing have been
discovered in the Ladrones. The delicacy of the missionary writers--in
many instances extremely absurd--has induced them to neglect informing
us in detail of the practices and regulations adopted by this society;
but enough is known from them, and from less timid narrators, to allow
of a tolerably full sketch.
From the traditions of the people it appears that the society was of
very ancient date: they said there had been Areois as long as there
had been men. Its origin is traced to two heroes--brothers, who, in
consequence of some adventures with the gods, were deified, and made
kings of the Areoi, which included all who would adhere to them as
their lords in heaven. Living in celibacy themselves, they did not
enjoin the same on their followers; but required that they should leave
no descendants. Thus the great law of the Areois was that all their
children should be slain. What the real origin of the institution was
it is impossible to discover. This legend, however, indicates a part of
its nature.
The Areois formed a body of privileged libertines, who spent their days
travelling from province to province, from island to island, exhibiting
a kind of licentious dramatic spectacle to the people, and everywhere
indulging the grossest of their passions. The company located itself
in a particular spot as its head-quarters, and at certain seasons
departed on an excursion through the group. Great parade was made
on the occasion of their setting out. They bore with them portable
temples for the worship of their tutelar gods, and, wherever they
halted, performed their pantomimes for the amusement of the people. The
priests and others--all classes and things--were ridiculed by them in
their speeches, with entire impunity, and they were entertained by the
chiefs with sumptuous feasts. There were, however, seven classes of
the Areois, of which the first was select and small, while the seventh
performed the lower and more laborious parts in their entertainments.
Numbers of servants followed them to prepare their food and their
dresses, and were distinguished by the name of Fanannan; these were not
obliged to destroy their children.
Every Areoi had his own wife, who was sacred from attack. Improper
conduct towards her was severely punished, sometimes by death. Towards
the wives of other persons, however, no respect was shown; for after
one of their vile and obscene spectacles, the members of the fraternity
would rush abroad, and commit every kind of excess among the humble
people. At their grand feasts, to which the privileged orders only were
admitted, numbers of handsome girls were introduced, who prostituted
themselves for small gifts to any member of the association.
The practice of destroying all their children, which was compulsory
among the Areois, licensed them to every kind of excess. The moment a
child was born its life was extinguished--either strangled, stabbed
with a sharp bamboo, or crushed under the foot. The professional
executioner waited by the woman’s couch, and, immediately the infant
came into the world, seized it, hurried it away, and in an instant
flung it dead into some neighbouring thicket, or a pit prepared
beforehand.
Infanticide was by no means confined to the Areois; it was an universal
practice. Generally the sacrifice took place immediately after the
birth; for, with the exception of those children demanded by the
priests to offer in the temple, it was seldom that an infant allowed to
live half an hour was destroyed. Whenever the execution was performed,
it was previously resolved upon. The females were killed oftener than
the males, and thus sprang up a great disproportion between the sexes,
which was evidently owing to this and their often unnatural customs,
as, since their abolition, the sexes are nearly equal.
Adultery was sometimes punished with death, but not under the public
law. It was optional with the husband to pursue the criminal, or
content himself with procuring another wife. A strange state of manners
is exhibited by the account we have of the early missionaries arriving
in Tahiti. The King Pomare came down to meet them with his wife Idia.
This woman, though married to the prince, remaining on friendly terms
with him, offering him advice, and influencing his actions by her
counsel, was then cohabiting with one of her own servants, who had for
some time been her paramour. The King, meanwhile, had taken his wife’s
youngest sister as a concubine; but she had deserted him for a more
youthful lover, whereupon he contented himself with a girl belonging to
the poorer class. Women, indeed, and men of the royal blood, were above
the law.
Abandoned wives, and girls who could find no husbands, usually became
prostitutes, as distinguished from those who pursued a profligate life
from sheer sensuality. They hired themselves out to the young men whom
the monopoly of women by the rich constrained to be contented with such
companions. We have no information whether they were subject to any
especial regulations; what the terms of contract were between them and
their temporary cohabitants; how they supported themselves in old age;
or, indeed, of anything concerning them, except the general nature of
their calling. A large class of these prostitutes dwelt near the ports
and anchoring grounds, deriving their means of subsistence from open or
clandestine intercourse with the sailors, who willingly paid them with
little articles of ornament or utility from Europe.
One of the missionaries of the first company desired to marry a Tahiti
woman. His brethren, however, strongly objected to the act; first,
because she was a heathen, second, because she was a prostitute. There
could not be then found on the island, as they declared themselves on
belief, a single undebauched girl above twelve years of age; therefore,
in accordance with the Scripture prohibition against marrying a
“heathen harlot,” they forbade him forming the connection. Nevertheless
he persisted, took the prostitute as wife, and is supposed to have been
murdered with her connivance.
Inconstancy among wives, and profligacy among unmarried women, was then
a characteristic almost universal in Tahiti. The wide-spread practice
of procuring abortion concealed many of the intrigues which took
place, and the last crime which began visibly to decrease was that of
adultery. Nor could this be a matter of wonder. The education of the
people was in a school of licentiousness. The most effective lessons
in obscenity were afforded by the priests in the temples, and children
of tender years indulged in acts of indescribable depravity. Thus in
few parts of the world could be discovered a more corrupt system of
manners, a more complete absence of morals, than in Tahiti.
Under the influence of the missionaries a great and beneficial change
was produced. French priests have now in a measure superseded them;
but even their exertions have not been able to neutralize the good
effects of the new code of morals introduced by the English friends of
civilization.
As to the actual amount, however, of the good which has been effected,
the accounts are contradictory. From the missionaries themselves we
learn that Christianity has been firmly established; that the female
sex has been elevated to an honourable position; that the Christian
rite of marriage is now generally observed; that infanticide is wholly
abolished; and that the manners of the people have become comparatively
pure. The picture, indeed, drawn by these artists, is vivid and full of
charms. We cannot, however, accept it without reserve; for such writers
have in many parts of the world been too eager to ring their peals
of triumph over the appearance of reform, without inquiring into its
substantial and durable nature.
Other accounts insist on the truth of a totally different view. A
recent author, a merchant, many years resident in Tahiti, describes
the result of missionary labour as a mere skinning over of the
corruption which exists. “Even now,” he says, speaking of that island,
“a people more ready to abandon themselves to sensuality cannot be
found under the canopy of heaven.” And further, in noticing the state
of the youthful population, he asserts, “It is a rare thing for a
woman to preserve her chastity until the age of puberty.” Delicacy,
he proceeds to tell us, is a thing unknown. There is hardly a man who
would not wink at his wife’s prostitution, or even abet it, to support
himself. The same system of corrupt manners is general throughout
the islands. The missionaries, by making adultery and fornication
offences punishable by fines--so many dollars each--have set up a
species of licence for immorality. The penalty is either eluded or
laughed at. Sometimes the woman’s paramour pays the penalty, and
continues with her. The morals of the people, therefore, have not
been radically reformed. Public decency is observed, but private
manners are disgusting. The Tahitians have thus learned hypocrisy,
for they now practise secretly what was formerly a recognised custom.
The men are jealous of their own race, but will bargain for their
wives with Europeans. One was asked the reason of this distinction. He
instantly made answer, that when a white man took one of their wives
he made her a present, passed on his way, and thought no more of her;
but it was very different with their own people, for they would be
continually hovering about the woman. The legal penalty for adultery by
a single man is a fine of ten hogs to the husband. If it is committed
by a married man he pays the ten hogs, while his paramour pays his
wife another ten to compensate her for the injury she has suffered;
thus the bargain is equal. Divorce is optional on either hand. For
prostitution, or fornication of any kind, the missionaries enacted a
fine. In a climate, however, where the girl ripens into puberty at the
age of eight or nine, this becomes a licence, and immorality is very
slightly checked. The depopulation of the group, which is still going
on, is mainly owing, says the same author, to physical privations
acting on moral depravity; for indigence is the lot of the people, and
licentiousness now, as formerly, their besetting sin.
We believe this to be an unfair account of the state of things now
existing in Tahiti. The writer[60] is possessed of a strong prejudice
against the missionaries, and we are inclined to apply to him, with
some modification, the observations of Commodore Wilkes, commander of
the recent American exploring expedition in reference to that island.
He tells us there is a class of traders who defame the missionaries,
as well as a profligate class who hate them, because they forbid
intoxicating liquors, have abolished lascivious dances, and prevent
women going on board ship to prostitute themselves. One charge against
the missionaries is, however, proved: they are guilty of a misjudging
zeal amounting to fanaticism, forbidding the women to wear chaplets
of flowers, because it is a sinful vanity; such a restriction is
worse than ridiculous. The Commodore, however, whom we accept as a
judicious and a trustworthy authority, already shows that much good
has been effected. The population is now almost stationary--the
births and deaths among all ages and both sexes were in 1839 naturally
proportionate; Christian marriage is established as the national
custom, and polygamy abolished; if infanticide be ever practised,
it is as a secret crime; and as for immorality, though by no means
extirpated, it has been considerably reduced. “Licentiousness,” says
Wilkes, “does still exist among them, but the foreign residents and
visitors are in a great degree the cause of its continuance, and an
unbridled intercourse with them serves to perpetuate it. Severe laws
have been enacted, but they cannot be put in force in cases where one
of the parties is a foreigner.” He proceeds to deny that the island is
conspicuous in this respect, and believes it would show advantageously
in contrast with many countries usually styled civilized.
In the distant Sandwich group a similar system of manners existed
before the abolition of idolatry in 1819. There was, however, one
singular custom: children bore the rank of their mother, not their
father, probably from the reason assigned by other savage races for
different laws, that the parentage was never certain. Polygamy was
practised, but if the king had a daughter by a noble wife she succeeded
to the throne, though he should have numerous sons by the others; in
fact, they were no more than concubines, though their offspring were
not invariably destroyed, unless the mothers belonged to the humbler
class of people; all the king’s illegitimate children, however, were
immediately killed. Adultery was punished with death; but intrigues
were frequent, and infanticide was practised to a terrible extent.
Since the enactment of the laws restraining sexual intercourse, the
crime has become comparatively rare, and the progress of depopulation
has been arrested.
We must, however, first view the people as they were before these
reforms occurred: there was little check upon the intercourse of the
sexes, except with regard to married women; the young girls being
abandoned almost entirely to a dissolute mode of life, the marriage
contract was a loose tie, easily broken, without anything of a sacred
or even honourable character. Husbands continually abandoned their
wives, who invariably destroyed the children thus left to them in
their virtual widowhood, and took to prostitution as a means of life.
The practice of procuring abortion was also resorted to, even more
than infanticide, and women were sometimes killed by the operation;
nevertheless, bastard children are sometimes reared, and the language
of the islanders supplies a delicate designation for one of this
brood: it is called “one that comes.”
Although the condition of the female sex was degraded, and although
the women were for the most part subjected to the will of the chiefs,
a few remained to be wedded among the poor, and to follow their own
inclinations in the choice of partners. The word “courting” is used
among them, or at least a synonymous term, signifying, literally,
“we must be crept to.” This indicates some elevation in their social
intercourse, but appears to have been a recent introduction. When a man
wished to marry a girl, some previous intimacy was supposed. According
to their former customs he goes to her, and offers her a present. If
she was willing to receive him, the gift was accepted; if not, he went
his way. The parents were then consulted. When they consented he at
once took home his bride, and all was consummated. When they refused
he either abandoned his suit or persuaded his lover to elope with him;
or, if possessed of sufficient property and power, forces her away.
When once settled in union the wives were usually faithful, though
previously they indulged in the utmost profligacy without any check.
The infanticide of the Sandwich Islands presented details still more
horrible than the worst of those described in connection with Tahiti.
Children six or seven years old, who so far had been carefully nursed,
were sometimes sacrificed when their parents became desperate or
indolent. An American traveller relates an affecting incident of a
man who desired to be rid of his child, while the mother endeavoured
to save it. Long altercations took place between them, until the
father one day, to put an end to the debate, seized his little son,
threw him over his knees, and with a single blow broke his back. The
circumstance was related to the king, with a demand for punishment
upon the offender. “Whose child was it?” he asked. They answered, “His
own.” “Then that is nothing,” he said, “to you or to me.” Usually the
office was performed by female child-stranglers, who made it their
profession. In a country where marriage, especially among the rich, was
simply a compact for temporary or permanent cohabitation, abundance of
employment was naturally afforded to those people. The chiefs, it is
true, married in the temple, but the addition of ceremonies added not a
whit of sanctity or durability to the bond. The first Christian wedding
took place in Oalm in 1822, and the rite has since that period been
established by law. The edict of 1819, indeed, proclaimed a revolution
in the social system of the group. But it is not easy to reform the
manners of a whole people. It is a slight task to publish laws, but
difficult to enforce them, especially when they assail the most
deeply-rooted prejudices, the sentiments, the passions, the religions,
and the pleasures, of a numerous community. Idolatry, infanticide,
polygamy, concubinage, and prostitution were all prohibited by the
declaration of 1819, but are still practised, though in secret, but by
no means so extensively as in former times. The financial laws check
infanticide. If a man has four children, he is exempt from labour taxes
to the king and to his landlord; if five, from the poll-tax also; if
six, from all taxes whatsoever. Indeed, the condition of the females
has been considerably raised, so that, instead of being the slaves,
they are now, at least in some degree, the companions of the men.
Of the actual state of the sex, and the characteristic of manners
in the Sandwich group, a fair sketch may be gathered from the facts
scattered through the large work of Commodore Wilkes; he went through
many districts, and examined minutely the progress of the people under
the new code. In one district of Dahu, a small island in the group, no
instance of infanticide had occurred (1840) during ten years; the law
against the illicit intercourse of the sexes had not tended to increase
the practice, and the population, which had been almost swept away, was
recovering. In the valley of Halalea the population had been decreasing
at the rate of one per cent. for nine years. In 1837, it was 3024--1609
males, 1415 females; and in 1840, 2935--1563 males, 1372 females. The
general licentiousness of manners, causing barrenness in the women,
with the practice of infanticide and abortion, prevented any increase.
In Waiaulea the population of 2640 decreased by 225 in four years; and
instances were known of women having six, seven, or even ten children,
in as many years, without rearing one of them; the bastards were
almost always destroyed, but the new law operated very beneficially
to check the intercourse of the sexes; and only one case was known of
a woman destroying her child, through fear of the penalty attaching
to fornication. It appears probable, however, that the regulation
compelling all unmarried women, found pregnant, to work on the public
roads, must encourage many unnatural practices; in Hawaii itself, the
principal island, where large numbers of men and women formerly lived
in promiscuous intercourse--as one woman common to several men--great
improvement is visible, and public manners have undergone much change;
licentiousness, notwithstanding, is still a prominent characteristic of
the people. These observations may be applied generally to the whole of
the Sandwich group.
Of the Tonga or Friendly Islands no description equals in completeness,
and none exceeds in general accuracy, that by Mariner, compiled by
John Martin. According to him, the female sex was not degraded there,
old persons of both sexes being entitled to equal reverence; women
in particular were respected as such, considered to form part of the
world’s means of happiness, and protected by that law of manly honour
which prohibits the strong from maltreating the weak. There were many
regulations respecting rank which do not belong to this inquiry; but
others of the same kind must be alluded to. The young girl, betrothed
or set apart to be the wife or concubine of a noble, acquired on that
account a certain position in the community. The rich women occupied
themselves with various forms of elegant industry, not as professions,
but accomplishments; while others made a trade of it.
The chastity of the Tonga people should be measured, in Mr. Martin’s
opinion, rather by their own than by others’ ideas of that virtue.
Among them it was held the positive duty of a married woman to be
faithful to her husband. By married woman was meant one who cohabited
with a man, lived under his roof and protection, and ruled an
establishment of his. Her marriage was frequently independent of her
own will, she being betrothed by her parents, while very young, to some
chief or other person. About a third were thus disposed of, the rest
marrying by their own consent. She must remain with her husband whether
she pleased or not, until he chose to divorce her.
About two-thirds of the females were married, and of these about half
continued with their husbands until death; that is, about a third
remained married till either they or their partners died. Of the others
two-thirds were married, and were soon divorced, marrying again two,
three, or four times; a few never contracted any marriage at all; and a
third were generally unmarried. Girls below puberty were not taken into
this account.
During Mariner’s residence of four years in the islands, where he
enjoyed privileges of social intercourse which no native was allowed,
he made numerous inquiries, and was led to believe that infidelity
among the married women was very rare. He remembered only three
successful instances of planned intrigue, with one other which he
suspected. Great chiefs might kill their wives taken in adultery, while
inferior men beat them. They were under the surveillance of female
servants, who continually watched their proceedings. Independently of
this also, he considered them inclined to conjugal virtue.