THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY AMONG THE MARQUESANS
Sec. 1. _The Marquesas Islands_
The Marquesas are an archipelago of eleven or twelve chief islands in
the South Pacific, situated about nine hundred miles to the north-east
of Tahiti. They fall into two groups, which together stretch in a
direction from north-west to south-east, from 8 deg. to 11 deg. of South
latitude. The south-eastern group, of which Hivaoa (Dominica) is the
largest island, was discovered by the Spanish Admiral Alvaro Mendana de
Neyra in 1595, but, so far as appears, it was not again visited by
Europeans until 1774, when Captain Cook touched at the islands on his
second voyage. Curiously enough, the north-westerly group, of which
Nukahiva is the largest and most important island, remained unknown
until 1791, when it was discovered by the American Captain Ingraham, who
named the group the Washington Islands. About a month later, in June
1791, the French navigator Marchand visited the same islands, and in
1797 the first missionary, William Crook, was landed from the missionary
ship _Duff_. The whole archipelago is now known as the Marquesas, a name
which the Spanish Admiral Mendana bestowed on the islands discovered by
him in honour of the Marquess de Canete, Viceroy of Peru, by whose order
the voyage had been undertaken.[1]
[1] Captain J. Cook, _Voyages_, iii. 274 _sqq._; G. Forster,
_Voyage round the World_, ii. 5 _sqq._; C. P. Claret Fleurieu,
_Voyage round the World performed by E. Marchand_ (London,
1801), i. 27 _sqq._, 55 _sqq._; J. Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to
the Southern Pacific Ocean_, pp. lxxiii. _sqq._, 127 _sqq._; A.
J. von Krusenstern, _Voyage round the World_ (London, 1813), i.
136; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _Iles Marquises ou
Nouka-hiva_ (Paris, 1843), pp. 1 _sqq._, 12 _sq._; Le P. Mathias
G----, _Lettres sur les Iles Marquises_ (Paris, 1843), pp. 7
_sqq._; P. E. Eyriaud des Vergnes, _L'Archipel des Iles
Marquises_ (Paris, 1877), pp. 1 _sqq._; C. E. Meinicke, _Die
Inseln des Stillen Oceans_, ii. 235 _sq._; F. H. H. Guillemard,
_Australasia_, ii. 522.
The islands are of volcanic formation, lofty and mountainous. The
interior consists generally of a range of mountains some three thousand
feet high, from which a series of spurs descend steeply to the coast,
terminating for the most part in tremendous cliffs, at the foot of which
the great rollers break in foam; for with a single exception there are
no coral reefs, and a ship can sail in deep water within a cable's
length of the rocks. Viewed at a distance from the sea, the aspect of
the islands is somewhat stern and forbidding. Bare mountains, jagged
peaks, sometimes lost in the clouds, and an iron-bound coast of black
and beetling crags, buffeted eternally by the surf, make up a gloomy
picture; but a nearer view discloses verdant valleys nestling between
the ridges which radiate from the central mountains. These valleys are
watered by mountain streams and clothed with dense tropical vegetation,
their luxuriant green offering an agreeable contrast to the bareness and
aridity of the frowning precipices and sharp peaks which soar above
them. Cascades tumbling from high cliffs into the depths of the glens
add to the beauty and charm of the scenery. So steep and precipitous are
the ridges which divide these smiling vales from each other that the
ascent and descent are in many places both difficult and dangerous even
for the natives; European mountaineers need to have stout limbs and
steady heads to accomplish them in safety. Hence in former days each
valley contained a separate tribe, which was commonly in a state of
permanent hostility towards its neighbours across the mountain
barriers.[2] Of these tribes the most famous were the warlike and
dreaded Taipiis or Typees, who occupied a beautiful valley at the
eastern end of Nukahiva, and in their mountain fastness deemed
themselves inaccessible to their enemies. However, in the early part of
the nineteenth century an American naval officer, Captain David Porter,
succeeded, not without great difficulty, in carrying havoc and
devastation into these sylvan scenes.[3] Later in the century a runaway
American sailor, Hermann Melville, spent more than four months as a
captive in the tribe, and published an agreeable narrative of his
captivity; but never having mastered the language, he was not able to
give much exact information concerning the customs and beliefs of the
natives.[4] As there is no maritime plain interposed between the
mountains and the shore, the only way of passing from one valley to
another is either to go by sea or to clamber over the intervening
ridges. It would be materially impossible, we are told, unless at
enormous and ruinous cost, to make a road or even a mule-path round any
of the Marquesas Islands, as has been done in Tahiti.[5]
[2] As to the formation and scenery of the islands, see
Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 110; C. S. Stewart, _Visit to the
South Seas_ (London, 1832), i. 193 _sqq._; F. D. Bennett,
_Narrative of a Whaling Voyage round the Globe_ (London, 1840),
i. 299 _sqq._; H. Melville, _Typee_, pp. 8 _sq._, 17 _sq._, and
_passim_ (_Everyman's Library_); Vincendon-Dumoulin et C.
Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 138 _sq._; P. E. Eyriaud des Vergnes,
_op. cit._ pp. 84 _sq._; Clavel, _Les Marquisiens_ (Paris, 1885)
pp. 1 _sq._; C. E. Meinicke, _op. cit._ ii. 236 _sq._; F. H. H.
Guillemard, _op. cit._ pp. 522 _sq._; A. Baessler, _Neue
Suedsee-Bilder_ (Berlin, 1900), pp. 192 _sq._, 220 _sqq._ As to
the extreme difficulty of scaling the mountains and precipices
to pass from one valley to another, see particularly M.
Radiguet, _Les Derniers Sauvages_ (Paris, 1882), pp. 101 _sq._,
note.
[3] Captain David Porter, _Journal of a Cruise made to the
Pacific Ocean_, Second Edition (New York, 1822), ii. 86 _sqq._
[4] H. Melville, _Typee_ (London, _Everyman's Library_, no
date). The first edition of this book was published in 1846.
Melville's residence among the Taipiis (Typees) fell in the year
1841.
[5] P. E. Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ p. 85.
Despite their situation in the heart of the tropics, the Marquesas enjoy
an extremely healthy climate subject to none of the inconveniences
usually incidental to countries in the same latitude; endemic and
epidemic diseases are alike unknown. European soldiers can work in the
sun without accident and without exhaustion.[6] The climate has been
described as an eternal spring, without winter or even autumn; though a
perpetual succession of ripe fruits may seem to lend an autumnal air to
the landscape, which yet is never chilled by hoar frosts or saddened by
the sight of bare boughs and fallen leaves.[7] Even in the hottest days
a cool wind blows from the sea, and at night there is a breeze from the
land. Rain falls during some months of the year, especially from May or
June to August or September; but on the whole there is little variation
in the seasons;[8] the Marquesan year has been described as one long
tropical month of June just melting into July.[9] Yet we are told that
the northern islands sometimes suffer from droughts which may last for
years; at such times vegetation languishes, till a fresh cloud-burst
restores the verdure of the trees and grass as by magic.[10] It is then,
too, that the cascades everywhere enliven the landscape by the glitter
and roar of their tumbling waters, which, after dropping from the
height, flow rapidly down their steep beds into the sea.[11]
[6] M. Radiguet, _Les Derniers Sauvages_ (Paris, 1882), pp. 304
_sq._; P. E. Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ p. 57.
[7] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 94.
[8] P. E. Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ p. 57. Compare M.
Radiguet, _Les Derniers Sauvages_, pp. 304 _sq._
[9] H. Melville, _Typee_, p. 220.
[10] A. Baessler, _op. cit._ pp. 222 _sq._
[11] M. Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 304.
Sec. 2. _Physical Appearance of the Natives_
Observers are generally agreed that from the purely physical point of
view the Marquesan islanders are, or used to be, the noblest specimens
of the Polynesian race. Captain Cook remarked that "the inhabitants of
these islands collectively are, without exception, the finest race of
people in this sea. For fine shape and regular features, they perhaps
surpass all other nations."[12] To the same effect the naturalist George
Forster, who accompanied Captain Cook, gives his impression of a crowd
of Marquesan men, among whom were no women. He says: "They were tall,
and extremely well limbed; not one of them unwieldy or corpulent like a
Taheitian, nor meagre and shrivelled like a native of Easter Island. The
punctuation" (by which he meant the tattooing) "which almost entirely
covered the men of a middle age, made it difficult to distinguish their
elegance of form; but among the youths, who were not yet marked or
tattooed, it was easy to discover beauties singularly striking, and
often without a blemish, such as demanded the admiration of all
beholders. Many of them might be placed near the famous models of
antiquity, and would not suffer in the comparison:
"_Qualis aut Nireus fuit, aut aquosa
Raptus ab Ida."_
HOR.
"The natural colour of these youths was not quite so dark as that of the
common people in the Society Isles; but the men appeared to be
infinitely blacker, on account of the punctures which covered their
whole body, from head to foot. These punctures were disposed with the
utmost regularity; so that the marks on each leg, arm, and cheek, and on
the corresponding muscles, were exactly similar. They never assumed the
determinate form of an animal or plant, but consisted of a variety of
blotches, spirals, bars, chequers, and lines, which had a most motley
appearance."[13]
[12] J. Cook, _Voyages_, iii. 284.
[13] G. Forster, _Voyage round the World_, ii. 14 _sq._ Compare
Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 152 _sq._; U. Lisiansky, _Voyage
round the World_ (London, 1814), p. 85; G. H. von Langsdorff,
_Reise um die Welt_ (Frankfurt am Mayn, 1812), i. 92 _sqq._;
Fleurieu, _op. cit._ i. 96 _sqq._; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C.
Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 216 _sqq._; Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op.
cit._ p. 39.
Similarly, speaking of the Taipiis or Typees, Melville observes, "In
beauty of form they surpassed anything I had ever seen. Not a single
instance of natural deformity was observable in all the throng attending
the revels. Occasionally I noticed among the men the scars of wounds
they had received in battle; and sometimes, though very seldom, the loss
of a finger, an eye, or an arm, attributable to the same cause. With
these exceptions, every individual appeared free from those blemishes
which sometimes mar the effect of an otherwise perfect form. But their
physical excellence did not merely consist in an exemption from these
evils; nearly every individual of their number might have been taken for
a sculptor's model."[14] As to their stature, the same writer affirms
that "the men, in almost every instance, are of lofty stature, scarcely
ever less than six feet."[15] Similarly Captain Porter tell us that
"they are far above the common stature of the human race, seldom less
than five feet eleven inches, but most commonly six feet two or three
inches, and every way proportioned. Their faces are remarkably handsome,
with keen, piercing eyes; teeth white, and more beautiful than ivory;
countenances open and expressive, which reflect every emotion of their
souls; limbs which might serve as models for a statuary, and strength
and activity proportioned to their appearance."[16] Another observer
remarks of them that "the natives bear the palm for personal beauty
from most other of the Polynesian tribes. The men are tall and muscular,
though rather slightly framed; their deportment is graceful and
independent; their features are handsome, and partake more of the
European regularity of profile than is usual with Polynesian
islanders."[17] The nose is straight or aquiline, sometimes short or
slightly flattened, but never ill-shaped: the mouth is never large nor
the lips thick: the forehead is rather low and somewhat retreating.[18]
The hair is almost always straight or wavy; men or women with frizzly
hair are very seldom seen, especially in the north-western group. The
colour of the skin, where it is not darkened by tattooing, is a clear
brown, resembling the bronzed appearance acquired by Europeans through
exposure to a tropical sun.[19] The women are both absolutely and
relatively shorter than the men; indeed Melville describes them as
"uncommonly diminutive." Their complexion is lighter; in the parts of
the body which are seldom exposed to the sun they are even said to
appear as white as European women. Their features are good, but rather
pretty than beautiful; their hands and feet are very shapely. Unlike the
men, who are, or used to be, tattooed from head to foot, the women were
tattooed very little, and that chiefly on the lips.[20] They took pains
to whiten their skin by avoiding exposure to the sun and by washing
themselves with the juice of a small native vine,[21] or by smearing
themselves with a cosmetic in which the yellow of the turmeric root
predominated.[22]
[14] H. Melville, _Typee_, p. 194.
[15] H. Melville, _Typee_, p. 195.
[16] David Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 58 _sq._
[17] F. D. Bennett, _op. cit._ i. 304.
[18] M. Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 169.
[19] Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ p. 39.
[20] Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ pp. 39 _sq._; H. Melville,
_Typee_, p. 195.
[21] C. S. Stewart, _Visit to the South Seas_, i. 231 _sq._, who
speaks highly of the beauty of the women. But the general
opinion appears to be that the Marquesan women are much less
handsome than the men. See Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 94-96;
Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 59.
[22] F. D. Bennett, _op. cit._ i. 308 _sq._
Sec. 3. _Food, Weapons, Tools, Houses, Canoes, Fishing_
The Marquesans subsist chiefly on a vegetable diet. Their staple food is
the bread-fruit, and their national dish is a paste called _popoi_,
which is prepared from bread-fruit after it has been subjected to a
process of fermentation. Fish is also a common article of diet; the
natives usually eat it raw, even when it is rotten and stinking. They
keep pigs, but seldom kill them except for a festival or at the
reception of a stranger. Hence pork is not a regular or common article
of diet with them; and apart from it they hardly taste flesh. Other
sorts of food, such as bananas, taro, and sugar-cane, are entirely
subsidiary to the great staples, bread-fruit and fish. The natives do
not readily accustom themselves to a European diet; indeed when the
experiment has been made of feeding them exclusively in our manner, they
have wasted away and only recovered their health when they were allowed
to return to their usual nourishment. Their ordinary beverage was water,
but they were also addicted to the drinking of kava, which was extracted
from the root of the _Piper methysticum_ in the usual fashion.[23]
Drawing their sustenance chiefly from the bread-fruit tree, the
Marquesans paid little attention to the cultivation of the soil;
however, they grew a certain amount of taro, sweet potatoes, and
sugar-cane; and they had plantations of the paper-mulberry,[24] the bark
of which was manufactured by the women into cloth in the ordinary way.
But the bark of other trees was also employed for the same purpose.
Since the natives were able to procure European stuffs, the indigenous
manufacture of bark-cloth has much declined.[25] Hence agriculture
engaged the men very little; fishing, though it was part of their
business, they are said to have neglected; the only work of consequence
they did was to build their houses and manufacture their arms, but these
employments occupied them only occasionally.[26]
[23] Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ pp. 42-44; Clavel, _Les
Marquisiens_, pp. 3 _sqq._ Compare G. Forster, _op. cit._ ii. 27
_sq._; Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 106-108; Fleurieu, _op. cit._
i. 115 _sq._; Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 50-55; F. D. Bennett, _op.
cit._ i. 316 _sq._; H. Melville, _Typee_, pp. 120-124, 179;
Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 277 _sq._;
Mathias G----, _op. cit._ pp. 138 _sq._, 144 _sq._; A. Baessler,
_op. cit._ pp. 208-211. As to the preparation and drinking of
kava among the Marquesans, see also M. Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp.
64-66.
[24] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 164; Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 53;
C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 213 _sq._; F. D. Bennett, _op.
cit._ i. 345 (who says that the only root the natives cultivate
for food is the sweet potato); Mathias G----, _op. cit._ pp.
148, 149; Clavel, _op. cit._ p. 18.
[25] Fleurieu, _op. cit._ i. 122 _sq._; Porter, _op. cit._ ii.
116; Bennett, _op. cit._ i. 337 _sq._; Melville, _Typee_, pp.
158-160, 210; Mathias G----, _op. cit._ pp. 137 _sq._; Radiguet,
_op. cit._ pp. 53 _sq._; Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ 55
_sq._; Clavel, _op. cit._ 19.
[26] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 164.
The weapons of the warriors were clubs, spears, and slings. The slings
were made of coco-nut fibre, and the natives were very expert in the use
of them. Bows and arrows were unknown.[27] Like the rest of the
Polynesians, the Marquesans were totally ignorant of the metals until
they acquired them from Europeans. Their tools were made of stone, bone,
and shell. Thus they employed a pointed stone to bore holes with, and an
axe of black, hard stone for cutting. The axe-head was shaped like an
elongated wedge or mortise-chisel, and was fastened to the haft by
coco-nut fibre. Some of these axes weighed as much as twenty-five
pounds. The natives also used sharp-edged or toothed shells as cutting
implements, and borers made of pointed bones; while rough fish-skins
served them as polishers.[28] Like the rest of the Polynesians, they
kindled fire by the method known as the stick-and-groove, that is, by
rubbing the sharp point of one stick against the flat surface of
another, so as to form a groove in it and, by continued friction, to
elicit smoke and a glow, which, with the help of dry leaves, is nursed
into a flame. Contrary to the usage of some peoples, the Marquesans
employed the same kind of wood for both the fire-sticks, either a
species of hibiscus (_Hibiscus tiliaceus_) or a species of poplar
(_Thespesia populnea_); for this purpose they split a branch in two,
lengthwise, and used the two pieces as the fire-sticks. In former days
these fire-sticks were regularly kept in every native house.[29]
[27] Fleurieu, _op. cit._ i. 118 _sq._; Krusenstern, _op. cit._
i. 162; Lisiansky, _op. cit._ p. 88; Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i.
152 (bows and arrows unknown); Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz,
_op. cit._ pp. 282 _sq._
[28] Fleurieu, _op. cit._ i. 121; Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i.
162.
[29] H. Melville, _Typee_, pp. 118 _sq._; Clavel, _Les
Marquisiens_, pp. 11 _sq._ Compare G. Forster, _op. cit._ ii.
20; D. Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 116; Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p.
143.
The Marquesan houses are regularly built on stone platforms, oblong or
square in shape, and raised above the ground to heights varying from one
to four, eight, or even ten feet. The higher platforms are approached
from the ground by ladders or notched poles. The houses, constructed of
timber and bamboo, are oblong in shape, and comprise a high back wall,
generally inclined forward at an angle, from which the thatched roof
slopes down steeply to a low front wall, while two short walls close the
house at either end. The door is in the middle of the front wall, and
is so low that it is necessary to stoop in entering. Sometimes the
fronts of the houses are entirely open except for the low pillars which
support the roof. The interior of the house forms a single chamber
undivided by partitions. Two trunks of coco-nut palms extend parallel to
each other along the whole length of the floor at an interval of four or
five feet; the innermost log, a foot or two distant from the back wall,
forms a pillow on which the heads of the sleepers rest, while the other
supports their feet or legs. The space between the two logs is paved
with stone, and spread with mats. In the single apartment the whole
family live and sleep. Such at least were the domestic arrangements in
the old days. The size of the houses naturally varies. Some of them
measure eighty feet by forty, others only twenty-five feet by ten, or
even less.[30]
[30] J. Cook, _Voyages_, iii. 285 _sq._; G. Forster, _op. cit._
pp. 21, 24; J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 131, 134 _sq._; Lisiansky,
_op. cit._ p. 84; Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 159; Langsdorff,
_op. cit._ i. 109-111; Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 39 _sq._; C. S.
Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 209-211, 212, 267 _sq._; Bennett, _op.
cit._ i. 302 _sq._; Melville, _Typee_, pp. 81-83;
Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 274-276;
Mathias G----, _op. cit._ pp. 122-129; Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp.
36-38; Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ pp. 44 _sq._; Clavel,
_op. cit._ pp. 15 _sq._; Baessler, _op. cit._ pp. 200-208.
The platforms on which the houses are built consist often of large
blocks of stone neatly and regularly laid without mortar or cement, in a
style which would do no discredit to European masons.[31] Sometimes the
stones are described as enormous blocks of rock,[32] some of which would
require ten or twelve men to carry or roll them.[33] Water-worn
boulders, washed down from the mountains in the bed of torrents, were
especially chosen for the purpose.[34]
[31] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 109 _sq._
[32] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 129.
[33] Langsdorff, _l.c._
[34] Clavel, _op. cit._ p. 15.
Sometimes, though far less commonly, Marquesan houses were raised above
the ground on posts from eight or ten to sixteen feet high. Such houses
were lightly built of wood and thatched; the floor was an open work of
split bamboos. Sometimes these raised dwellings resembled the ordinary
Marquesan house in structure; at other times they were quadrangular,
with perpendicular walls and an ordinary roof. They were approached by
ladders and resembled the habitations in use among the Malay tribes of
the Indian Archipelago. No dwellings of this type have been noticed in
Nukahiva, the principal island of the archipelago; but they have been
seen and described in Tauata (Santa Christina) and Hivaoa
(Dominica).[35]
[35] F. D. Bennett, _op. cit._ i. 303 _sq._; Baessler, _op.
cit._ pp. 207 _sq._
The Marquesans built canoes of various sizes, the smaller for fishing,
the larger for war. These latter might be from forty to fifty feet long.
They were fitted with outriggers. The prow had an ornamental projection
rudely carved to represent the head of an animal. Sometimes the prows of
war canoes were decorated with the skulls of slaughtered enemies. But in
general the Marquesans appear to have been inferior to the other South
Sea islanders in the arts of canoe-building and navigation.[36] This
inferiority may perhaps have been partly due to the absence of those
lagoons which, formed by coral reefs, elsewhere enabled the natives to
acquire confidence and skill in sailing on smooth and sheltered waters.
The same cause may also, perhaps, explain why fishing was comparatively
little practised by the Marquesans. We are told that as an occupation it
was despised by such as owned a piece of land of any extent, and that
only the poorer class of people, who depended on the sea for a
livelihood, addicted themselves to it. They caught fish by means both of
nets and of lines with hooks neatly made of mother-of-pearl; also they
stupefied the fish by a certain mashed root, which the fisherman
distributed in the water by diving, and then caught the fish as they
rose to the surface.[37]
[36] J. Cook, _Voyages_, iii. 287; Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i.
163 _sq._; Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 150; Porter, _op. cit._,
ii. 12-14; Bennett, _op. cit._ i. 338; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C.
Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 280-282.
[37] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 163.
Sec. 4. _Polyandry, Adoption, Exchange of Names_
The social life of the Marquesan islanders presented some peculiar
features. Thus they are said to have practised the rare custom of
polyandry. On this subject Stewart observes: "We have yet met with no
instance, in any rank of society, of a male with two wives, but are
informed that for one woman to have two husbands is a universal habit.
Some favourite in the father's household or retinue at an early period
becomes the husband of the daughter, who still remains under the
paternal roof till contracted in marriage to a second individual, on
which she removes with her first husband to his habitation, and both
herself and original companion are supported by him."[38] Melville
describes the custom in substantially the same way, and adds, "No man
has more than one wife, and no wife of mature years has less than two
husbands,--sometimes she has three, but such instances are not
frequent." He seems to have attributed the practice to a scarcity of
women; for he tells us that "the males considerably outnumber the
females."[39] The same view was taken at a later date by Dr. Clavel, who
observes: "In the islands where the women are in a minority we may to
this day observe tolerably numerous cases of polyandry. Thus at Ua-Una I
met some women who had each two husbands, almost always one of them
young and the other old. Such households of three are not worse than the
rest and never give rise to intestine dissensions."[40] According to
Radiguet, the right of having more husbands than one was not general and
hardly belonged to any but chieftainesses,[41] but this limitation is
denied by a good authority.[42] The Russian navigator Lisiansky, who
visited the Marquesas in 1804, seems to have supposed that the custom
was restricted to wealthy families. He says: "In rich families, every
woman has two husbands; of whom one may be called the assistant husband.
This last, when the other is at home, is nothing more than the head
servant of the house; but, in case of absence, exercises all the rights
of matrimony, and is also obliged to attend his lady wherever she goes.
It happens sometimes, that the subordinate partner is chosen after
marriage; but in general two men present themselves to the same woman,
who, if she approves their addresses, appoints one for the real husband,
and the other as his auxiliary: the auxiliary is generally poor, but
handsome and well-made."[43]
[38] C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 317.
[39] Melville, _Typee_, pp. 203 _sq._
[40] Clavel, _op. cit._ p. 60.
[41] Radiguet, _op. cit._ 173.
[42] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 111.
[43] Lisiansky, _op. cit._ p. 83. As to polyandry in the
Marquesas, see further E. Westermarck, _History of Human
Marriage_, Fifth Edition (London, 1921), iii. 146 _sqq._
Another peculiar habit of the Marquesans was to give away their children
to be adopted by other people soon after their birth. When a woman was
pregnant, she and her husband would discuss to whom they should give the
child that was about to be born. They received offers from neighbours,
and often knocked down the infant to the highest bidder; for the
adopting parents regularly made presents to the child's family,
consisting of cloth, tools, and pigs, according to the fortune of the
contracting parties. After birth the child remained with its mother for
some months till it was weaned, upon which it was sent away to its
parents by adoption, who might inhabit a different district and even a
different island. It is said to have been exceptional for parents to
bring up their own offspring.[44]
[44] Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ pp. 19 _sq._; Clavel, _op.
cit._ pp. 56, 61 _sq._
Another mode by which the Marquesans created artificial relationships
was the exchange of names. Such an exchange was equivalent to a
ratification of amity and good-will between the persons, who thereby
acquired a claim to mutual protection and the enjoyment of each other's
property and even of their wives, if they happened to be married men.
The custom was not limited to the natives; they readily exchanged names
with Europeans and granted them the privileges which flowed from the
pact. It is even said that some natives gave their own names to animals,
which thenceforth became sacred for them and for the rest of the tribe.
This led to so many inconveniences that the priests had to forbid the
practice of exchanging names with animals.[45]
[45] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 16 _sq._, 158 _sq._; Clavel, _op.
cit._ pp. 61 _sq._
Sec. 5. _Amusements, Dancing-places, Banqueting-halls_
A favourite amusement of the islanders was racing or combating on
stilts. A stilt was composed of two pieces, a pole of light wood which
the runner held in his hand, and a step or foot-rest of hard wood, on
which he planted one of his feet. The step or foot-rest was often
adorned with human figures curiously carved, which are said to have
represented gods. The races or combats took place on the paved areas
which were to be seen in most villages, and which formed the scene of
public entertainments. In these contests each runner or combatant tried
to get in the way of his adversary, and, balancing himself on one stilt,
to strike his rival with the other, so as to bring him to the ground
amid the laughter and jeers of the spectators. It has sometimes been
supposed that the use of stilts in the Marquesas originated in the
practical purpose of enabling people to cross a stream without wetting
their feet. But the supposition is highly improbable. For, on the one
hand, the streams in the islands are mere rivulets, which dry up for the
greater part of the year; and, on the other hand, the natives are almost
amphibious, often spending whole days in the water, and swimming for
hours without fatigue. Hence it is absurd to imagine that they invented
stilts simply to keep their feet dry at crossing a shallow stream.[46]
[46] Fleurieu, _op. cit._ i. 119 _sq._, 124; Langsdorff, _op.
cit._ i. 146; Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 124-126; Vincendon-Dumoulin
et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 284; Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p.
96. As for the ability of the natives to swim in the sea for
hours without fatigue, compare J. Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to
the Southern Pacific Ocean_, p. 129.
But perhaps the most popular recreation of the Marquesans was dancing
and singing, which formed a leading feature of their festivals. Every
inhabited district had its dancing-place, a sort of public square, where
places were set apart for the use of the performers, the musicians, and
the spectators. These have been described by the missionary, C. S.
Stewart, from personal observation. He says, "Our walk terminated at
what may be called the _theatre_ or _opera house_ of the settlement, a
large rectangular platform of stone pavement, surrounded by low terraces
also laid with stone; the first designed for the public exhibitions of
the song and the dance, and the last for the accommodation of the
spectators who assemble to witness the performance. Entertainments of
this kind are the most fashionable and favourite amusements at the
Washington and the Marquesan groups. Every inhabited district has its
_Tahua_, or public square of this kind; some of them so extensive, it is
said, as to be capable of accommodating ten thousand people."[47] Again,
speaking of another of these dancing-places, the same writer observes,
"This _Tahua_, or theatre, is a structure altogether superior to that
visited by us yesterday, and so massive and well built as to be capable
of enduring for ages. It is a regular oblong square, about sixty feet in
length and forty broad. The outer wall consists of immense stones, or
slabs of rock, three feet high, and many of them four or six feet long,
joined closely together and hewn with a regularity and neatness truly
astonishing, in view of the rude implements by which it must have been
accomplished. On a level with the top of this outer wall, a pavement of
large flat stones, several feet in width, extends entirely round,
forming seats for the chiefs, warriors, and other persons of
distinction, and singers performing the recitatives and choruses
accompanying the dance. Within this, and some inches lower, is another
pavement still wider, having large flat-topped stones fixed in it at
regular intervals of six or eight feet, used as seats by the beaters on
the drums, and other rude instruments of music, and immediately within
this again, an unpaved area, some twenty feet long by twelve broad,
constituting the stage on which the dancers exhibit their skill."[48]
[47] C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 214 _sq._
[48] C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 233 _sq._ Compare
Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 265 _sq._
Some of these dancing-places appear to have been much larger than those
seen by Stewart. According to Langsdorff they were sometimes not less
than a hundred fathoms in length, and the great smooth pavement
consisted of blocks of stone, several feet broad, laid so neatly and so
close together that you might have imagined it to be the work of
European master-masons.[49] Radiguet describes one such dancing-place as
a rectangular area eighty metres (about two hundred and sixty feet) long
by thirty metres (about one hundred feet) broad, and surrounded by a
terrace paved with stone, on which the spectators were seated.[50]
[49] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 138.
[50] Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 195.
The festivals (_koikas_) celebrated at these places were either
periodical or occasional. Among the periodical perhaps the most
important was that held at the ingathering of the bread-fruit harvest in
February and March. Among the occasional were those held after a
successful fishing, at the ratification of peace, and after the death
of a priest or chief, who had been raised to the rank of a deity. A
messenger decked in all the native finery repaired to the surrounding
villages inviting the inhabitants to attend the festival. Immense
numbers of hogs were killed and huge troughs filled with bread-fruit
were provided by the hosts for the banquet. The festivals were attended
not only by the people of the particular valley in which they were held,
but by the inhabitants of other valleys and even of other islands; for
so long as a festival lasted, a special taboo forbade the natives to
harm the strangers in their midst. A general truce was observed; members
of hostile tribes came to share the pleasures of the festival with the
foes whom they had recently fought, and whom they would fight again in a
few days.[51] Yet such visitors were careful to observe certain
precautions: they never came unarmed, and they always kept together on
one side of the festival ground, in order that they might rally the more
easily for mutual defence, if they should be suddenly attacked.[52]
[51] C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 236 _sq._; F. D. Bennett, _op.
cit._ i. 318; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp.
264 _sq._; Mathias G----, _op. cit._ pp. 69 _sqq._; Radiguet,
_op. cit._ pp. 192 _sq._
[52] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 138.
The performers who sang and danced at these festivals for the
entertainment of the public were called _Hokis_ or _Kaioas_: they are
described as a sort of wandering troubadours or minstrels, who went from
tribe to tribe, seeking their fortune. They took great care of their
persons, which they artificially whitened. At once poets, musicians, and
dancers, they nevertheless did not enjoy the public esteem; on the
contrary, their effeminate habits incurred the contempt of a people who
had small taste for the fine arts.[53] Thus these wandering minstrels
and mountebanks would seem to have corresponded to the Areois of the
Society Islands.[54] The dances were accompanied by the beating of drums
and the songs of a chorus, it might be of a hundred and fifty singers,
who sat on the upper platform along with the chiefs and warriors.
Sometimes in the intervals between the dances a choir of women, seated
on an adjoining and elevated platform, would chant in dull monotonous
tones, clapping their hands loudly in unison with their song. The
subjects of the songs were various and were often furnished by some
passing event, such as the arrival of a ship or any less novel incident.
Not unfrequently, like ballads in our own country, the songs caught the
popular fancy and became fashionable, being sung in private by all
classes of society. So passionately addicted were the Marquesans to
these entertainments that they undertook the longest and most fatiguing
journeys from all parts of the island in order to be present at them,
carrying their food and suffering great hardships by the way; they even
came in their crazy canoes, at the hazard of their lives, from other
islands, and accepted the risk of being knocked on the head at one of
the brawls with which such gatherings usually ended.[55]
[53] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 231.
Compare C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 237, who calls the
performers _Kaioi_.
[54] See above, pp. 259 _sqq._
[55] C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 234, 236, 237.
Closely connected with the festivals were the banqueting-halls, as they
may be called. These were houses, or rather sheds, thatched with leaves
and open in front, where the lower end of the sloping roof was supported
on short wooden pillars, of which the upper parts were rudely carved in
the likeness of the god Tiki, thus forming a sort of Caryatids. These
sheds varied in length from thirty to sixty and even two hundred feet in
length. They stood on quadrangular stone platforms of the usual type,
ranging from three or four to six, eight, twelve, and even fifteen feet
in height. The blocks of stone put together to form the platforms were
sometimes enormous, many of them measuring eight feet long by four feet
thick and wide; and they were hewn and polished into such perfect form
as to excite the wonder of the European beholder, who reflected with
astonishment on the vast labour requisite to bring these huge rocks from
the sea and to chisel them into shape without the help of iron tools.
Access to the platforms was afforded by sloping trunks of trees notched
into steps. In these open sheds the men feasted and prayed. Before each
repast it was customary to offer to the deity a small portion of food
wrapt in leaves. Sometimes the priests would thrust the morsels into the
mouths of Tiki's grotesque images. No woman might enter these
banqueting-halls or mount the platforms on which they stood. The place
was strictly tabooed to them, and the taboo was signified in the usual
way by long pennants of white cloth attached to the posts of the
house.[56]
[56] Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 38 _sq._; F. D. Bennett, _op. cit._
i. 317 _sq._; Mathias G----, _op. cit._ pp. 54-56; Melville,
_Typee_ pp. 93-95. Of these writers it is Porter who gives the
dimensions of some of the blocks of stone composing the
platforms and expresses his amazement at the labour involved in
their construction. He concludes his description as follows (ii.
39): "When we count the immense numbers of such places, which
are everywhere to be met with, our astonishment is raised to the
highest, that a people in a state of nature, unassisted by any
of those artificial means, which so much assist and facilitate
the labour of the civilized man, could have conceived and
executed a work, which, to every beholder, must appear
stupendous. These piles are raised with views to magnificence
alone; there does not appear to be the slightest utility
attending them: the houses situated on them are unoccupied,
except during the period of feasting, and they appear to belong
to a public, without the whole efforts of which they could not
have been raised, and with every exertion that could possibly
have been made, years must have been requisite for the
completion of them." Of one of these structures seen by him in
the anterior of Nukahiva, Stewart observes, "The stones, bearing
marks of antiquity that threw the air of an old family mansion
around the whole, were regularly hewn and joined with the
greatest nicety, many which I measured being from four to six
feet in length, nearly as wide, and two or more deep" (_Visit to
the South Seas_, i. 267 _sq._).
Sec. 6. _Social Ranks, Taboo_
Socially the Marquesans were divided into chiefs or nobles and
commoners; but the chiefs seem to have possessed very little authority,
and to have received few outward marks of deference and respect. A
monarchical government in any proper sense of the word was unknown.[57]
The power of the chiefs, such as it was, rested mainly on their superior
wealth, particularly on their landed property; for the larger their
estates, the greater the number of the tenants whose services they could
command. Hence the government has been called aristocratic and compared
to the feudal system.[58] In a fruitful season the chiefs had a right to
a fourth part of the produce, and in other seasons a share according to
circumstances. Their dignity was hereditary.[59] There was no general
government of the archipelago as a whole. Each island was quite
independent of all the rest; and in every island there were several
independent tribes, which were generally at war with each other.[60]
[57] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 165; Langsdorff, i. 112 _sq._;
Fleurieu, _op. cit._ i. 132-134; Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 64;
Melville, _Typee_, p. 199; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz,
_op. cit._ p. 225; Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ pp. 24 _sq._
[58] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ 101 _sq._
[59] Lisiansky, _op. cit._ p. 80.
[60] Lisiansky, _op. cit._ pp. 79 _sq._; Clavel, _op. cit._ p.
62.
A powerful instrument in the hands of the nobles was the taboo or
_tapu_, which, though it seems to have been originally a religious
institution,[61] was turned to political and economic account by the
chiefs and priests acting in conjunction. One of our best authorities on
the Marquesans describes the institution as a tool of despotism for the
gratification of the passions and caprices of such as could wield
it.[62] But this is a somewhat one-sided and imperfect view to take of
its scope. There is no doubt, as other good authorities on the
Marquesans have pointed out, that in the absence of a strong government
which could maintain order and protect life and property, the taboo to a
great extent served the purposes which in more civilised society are
fulfilled by laws.[63] The taboo was a sacred interdiction, a breach of
which was believed of itself to entail disastrous consequences on the
transgressor. The interdiction might be either public or private. To
give examples of public interdictions, when the quantity of breadfruit,
on which the people depended for their subsistence, was from any cause
seriously diminished in a district, the chief had the right to impose a
taboo on bread-fruit trees for twenty months, during which no one might
gather the fruit. This close time allowed the trees to recover their
strength and fertility. Similarly, if fish were scarce, the chief might
pronounce a taboo on the neighbouring bay, or a part of it, in order to
allow the fish to multiply undisturbed and replenish the sea in the
neighbourhood of human habitations. Again, in the prospect of a great
festival, a chief might lay an interdict on pigs for two or three years
in advance, in order that, when the time came, there might be plenty of
pork for the multitude at the banquet. Similarly, when the
paper-mulberry, from which the Marquesans made their bark-cloth,
threatened to give out, the chief might lay the trees under an
interdict for five years, at the end of which the crop was sure to be
magnificent.[64] In these and similar cases the taboo was of public
utility by ensuring a proper supply of the necessaries of life. However,
its imposition was not always guided by rational considerations, and
hence it sometimes failed of its purpose. For example, so long as the
bread-fruit was unripe, almost all kinds of fish were taboo and
therefore might not be eaten, and this interdiction, instead of
alleviating, tended naturally to aggravate the scarcity of food. The
reason for the taboo was a curious superstition that if any one were to
eat fish while the bread-fruit was unripe, the fruit would fall from the
trees.[65]
[61] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ pp. 47 _sq._; Vincendon-Dumoulin
et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 259.
[62] Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 153.
[63] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 258 _sq._;
Clavel, _op. cit._ pp. 65 _sq._
[64] Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ pp. 35 _sq._ Compare
Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 155.
[65] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 118.
But the taboo also served a useful purpose by ensuring respect for
private property, which is a fundamental condition of social prosperity.
"The priests only," we are told, "can impose a general taboo, but every
individual has a right to pronounce one upon his own property: this is
done by declaring, if his wish be to preserve a breadfruit, or a cocoa
tree, a house or a plantation, from robbery and destruction, that the
spirit of his father or of some king, or indeed of any other person,
reposes in this tree, or house, which then bears the name of the person,
and nobody ventures to attack it. If any one is so irreligious as to
break through a taboo, and should be convicted of it, he is called
_kikino_; and the _kikinos_ are always the first to be devoured by the
enemy, at least they believe it to be so, nor is it impossible that the
priests should so arrange matters as that this really happens."[66]
Again, if a man's pig had been stolen, and he suspected who had done the
deed, he would lay a taboo on the swine or other property of the thief
by giving his own name, or the name of somebody else, to the animals or
the trees or whatever it might be. After that, in the opinion of the
people, the property so named was bewitched or haunted by the spirit of
the person, whether alive or dead, whose name it bore; and this belief
sometimes sufficed to compel the thief to abandon his possessions and to
settle elsewhere.[67] A wreath of leaves or a strip of white cloth
attached to a house, a canoe, a fruit-tree, or other piece of property,
was the symbol of taboo, and in ordinary circumstances was enough to
protect it.[68]
[66] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 172. In this quotation I have
altered the spelling _tahbu_ into _taboo_.
[67] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 116.
[68] Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 157; Melville, _Typee_, p. 230;
Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 264.
But the taboo was an instrument which could be used capriciously to
thwart, as well as to further, the course of justice. Thus we read how,
under the French government of the islands, a wife set out for the
police-office to complain of the ill-treatment to which she had been
subjected by her husband. But scarcely had she put her foot outside the
door, when her husband, aware of her intention and determined to
frustrate it, called out after her, "The road from here to the
police-office is your father." On hearing that, the woman at once
stopped short, for under no circumstances would she dare to trample on
the author of her being. On the contrary, she immediately roasted two
little pigs and carried them to the tomb of her father as an offering to
appease his ghost, which might reasonably be supposed to fret at the
mere thought of being trodden under foot by his own daughter.[69] This
instructive example shows how closely the taboo was associated with the
fear and worship of the dead; by bestowing the name of a dead person on
a thing you rendered the thing inviolate, since thereby you placed it
under the immediate protection of the ghost.
[69] Clavel, _op. cit._ p. 68.
Among the multitude of taboos which were religiously observed by the
Marquesans it is perhaps possible to detect a trace of totemism. Thus
the sting ray fish was taboo to the tribe of Houmis. Not only would they
not eat the fish, but they fled in horror if it were even shown to them.
Their horror was explained by a tradition that once on a time a great
chief of the tribe had been out fishing with his people, when a gigantic
sting ray upset their canoes and gobbled them all up.[70] This aversion
to eating and even looking at a certain species of animal, together with
a traditionary explanation based on an incident in the past history of
the tribe, is very characteristic of totemism.
[70] Clavel, _op. cit._ pp. 67 _sq._
Sec. 7. _Religion and Mythology_
The consideration of taboo introduces us to the subject of religion;
for, on the one hand, the foregoing evidence tends to establish a
connexion between the institution of taboo and the doctrine of the human
soul, and on the other hand some of our best authorities on the
Marquesans have stated that the taboo was believed to be an expression
of the will of the gods conveyed to the people through the mouth of a
priest.[71] The definition may be accepted, if under gods we include the
spirits of the dead, who were worshipped by the Marquesans and lent
their sanction, as we have just seen, to the taboo.
[71] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 258;
Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 48; Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 153;
Clavel, _op. cit._ p. 65.
The Marquesan term for a god was the usual Polynesian word _atua_ or, as
it is sometimes spelled, _etua_. But their notion of divinity, as
commonly happens, was vague. One of the earliest writers on their
religion, the Russian navigator Krusenstern, informs us that "a confused
notion of a higher being, whom they call _Etua_, does indeed exist among
them, but of these there are several kinds; the spirit of a priest, of a
king, or of any of his relations, being an _etua_. They likewise
consider all Europeans as such; for as their ideas do not extend beyond
their own horizon, they are firmly convinced that their ships come from
the clouds; and they imagine that thunder is occasioned by the
cannonading of vessels which float in the atmosphere, on which account
they entertain a great dread of artillery."[72] The _atuas_ or deities
of the Marquesans, we are told by another writer, "are numerous and vary
in their character and powers. Besides those having dominion
respectively, as is supposed, over the different elements and their most
striking phenomena, there are _atuas_ of the mountain and of the forest,
of the sea-side and of the interior, _atuas_ of peace and of war, of the
song and of the dance, and of all the occupations and amusements of
life. It is supposed by them that many of the departed spirits of men
also become _atuas_: and thus the multiplicity of their gods is such,
that almost every sound in nature, from the roaring of the tempest in
the mountains and the bursting of a thunderbolt in the clouds, to the
sighing of a breeze through the cocoa-nut tops and the chirping of an
insect in the grass or in the thatch of their huts, is interpreted into
the movements of a god."[73]
[72] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 171.
[73] C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 243 _sq._ Compare
Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 240; Radiguet,
_op. cit._ pp. 218 _sq._
But the Marquesans, not content with deifying some men after death,
deified others in their lifetime. Amongst them there is, or rather used
to be, a class of living men "who claim the title and attributes of the
Deity; not through a professed inspiration or possession by a
supernatural influence or power, but in their own right of godship as
those who control the elements, impart fruitfulness to the productions
of the earth or smite them with blasting and sterility, and who exercise
the prerogatives of the Deity in scattering disease and wielding the
shafts of death. They are few in number, not more than one or two at
farthest on an island, and live in a seclusion and mysticism somewhat in
unison with their blasphemous pretensions. There is none at present in
the near vicinity of Taiohae,[74] though the former abode of such an
individual is pointed out at the foot of a bold cliff, high in the
mountains. The Rev. Mr. Crook gives the following account of an Atua, at
the island of Tahuata, in the Windward or Marquesan group, while he
resided there temporarily in 1797, as a missionary from the London
Missionary Society: 'He is now of great age, and has lived from early
life at Hanateiteina, in a large house surrounded by an enclosure called
the A. In the house is an altar, and from the beams within and upon the
trees around it are human carcasses, suspended with their heads downward
and scalped. No one enters the premises but his servant, except when
human sacrifices are offered. Of these, more are offered to him than to
any other of their gods, and he frequently seats himself on an elevated
scaffold in front of his house and calls for two or three at a time. He
is invoked in all parts of the island, and offerings everywhere are
made to him and sent to Hanateiteina.'"[75] Similarly a Catholic
missionary tells us that in the island of Nukahiva he was personally
acquainted with two living human deities, a priest and a priestess, both
of whom, it was said, had the right to demand the sacrifice of human
victims to themselves. He adds, however, that they did not abuse the
right, and that nobody in the world appeared more affable and polite
than these divinities; he even entertained hopes of one day baptizing
the priest.[76] Of the reverence in which the priestly class in general
was held by the people, Captain Porter remarks that "their priests are
their oracles; they are considered but little inferior to their gods; to
some they are greatly superior, and after their death they rank with the
chief divinity."[77]
[74] The principal harbour of Nukahiva.
[75] C. S. Stewart, _op cit._ i. 244 _sq._ Compare
Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 226, 240 _sq._
The missionary William Crook was landed in the Marquesas from
the missionary ship _Duff_ in 1797. See J. Wilson, _Missionary
Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_, pp. 131 _sqq._
[76] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 45.
[77] Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 114.
Little seems to be recorded of the theology and mythology of the
Marquesans; but among their myths was the widespread Polynesian story of
the origin of fire. Of old, it was said, fire used to be jealously
guarded by Mahoike in the infernal regions. Hearing of its utility, Maui
descended into the nether world to steal some of the element; but he
failed to elude the vigilance of its guardian and was obliged to resort
to force to extort the boon from him. In the struggle which ensued
Mahoike lost an arm and a leg, and to save his remaining limbs he
consented to give fire to the victorious Maui. At the same time he
offered to rub it on Maui's leg; but Maui was too cunning to agree to
that, for he knew that in that case the fire which he took to earth
would not be sacred. Finally, Mahoike rubbed the fire on Maui's head,
and said to him, "Go back to the place you came from and touch with your
forehead all the trees except the _keika_: all the trees will yield you
fire."[78]
[78] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 223 _sq._ For the names of the
Marquesan deities, among whom Tiki appears to have been the most
famous, and for some myths concerning them, see Mathias G----,
_op. cit._ pp. 40 _sqq._; Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 221 _sqq._;
Amable, in _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi_, xix. (1847)
pp. 23 _sq._; Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ pp. 27 _sqq._
In the Marquesas there was a class of men called _tauas_, who were
supposed to possess an hereditary gift of inspiration and to become
deities after their death. They could cause a god to dwell within them.
Often at night they might be heard conversing with the divinity in their
bodies, the deity crying out in a shrill voice, while the man answered
him in his own ordinary voice. Sometimes they would make a rustling
noise with their fingers in the leaves, and say that they had been
miraculously taken through the thatch of the house and brought back
again by the door. In their fits of inspiration they became convulsed
and glared fiercely with their eyes; then, with their hands quivering
violently, they would run about, while they prophesied death to their
enemies in squeaky tones, or demanded human victims for the god by whom
they were possessed. With the function of prophecy they combined the
office of physician or rather of exorciser. For every internal disorder
was believed to be inflicted by some god, who had taken possession of
the sufferer's person; and the _tauas_, or high priests, as we may call
them, were called in to heal the patient by ridding him of the divinity
who had entered into him. This they commonly did by feeling for the
mischievous deity till they found him, when they smothered him between
the palms of their hands.[79] Sometimes the good physician would
converse with the spirit whom he had thus caught between his hands, and
would elicit from him in conversation the cause of the sickness, which
usually consisted in some breach of taboo, such as a theft of
bread-fruit or coco-nuts from a sacred tree. At the same time the
affable spirit would reveal to the physician the penalty which the sick
man must pay in order to expiate his crime and thereby ensure his
recovery. A sacrifice of pigs would appear to have been usually deemed
indispensable for the patient's complete convalescence; the animals were
conveyed to a temple and there consumed by the priests for the benefit
of the sufferer.[80] The _tauas_ or high priests were supposed to become
gods after death; when one of them departed this life, it was essential
for his deification that human victims should be sacrificed. The number
of victims varied with the rank of the new deity; it was never less than
seven, but oftener ten. Each victim was sacrificed for the sake of a
particular part of the deity's body, as for his head, or his eyes, or
his hair. To procure the necessary tale of victims, predatory
expeditions were undertaken against the tribes in neighbouring
valleys.[81]
[79] C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 245 _sq._; Vincendon-Dumoulin
et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 227 _sq._
[80] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 136. The writer's language seems
to imply that the spirit whom the priestly physician caught in
his hands and interrogated was the patient's own soul.
[81] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 45; C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._
i. 247; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 228
_sq._
Sec. 8. _The Soul, Death, and Funeral Customs_
Like most savages, the Marquesans thought that they possessed souls
which could quit their bodies and wander far away in dreams. Thus a
young girl once related how, the night before, she had sailed in a
splendid canoe to Tiburones, a mythical paradise to the west of
Nukahiva; there she had seen beautiful things such as do not exist here
on earth. "There," said she, "the trees are very tall, and the people
very handsome; there they sing songs to music sweeter than ours. Ah!
when shall I be able to return to Tiburones?" On another occasion a
woman's soul appeared to a priest to inform him that she had committed
the heinous crime of eating a fowl, but that she would expiate the
sacrilege by an early death. The French authorities summoned both the
priest and the woman to the bar of justice. There the priest stuck to it
that he had received the revelation, and the woman expressed her regret
for the escapade of which her soul had been guilty without her
knowledge. It was necessary to reassure her on the subject of her soul's
rash act and melancholy prediction, otherwise she might have fulfilled
the prophecy by refusing food and dying outright.[82]
[82] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 238 _sq._
At death the soul was supposed to depart from the body by the mouth or
the nose; hence in order to delay its departure and so to prolong the
life of its owner, affectionate relatives used to stop his mouth and
nostrils, thus accelerating the event which they wished to retard.[83]
[83] Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 245; Clavel, _op. cit._ p. 44,
note^1. Compare Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 115.
The Marquesans have, or used to have, a sovereign contempt for death,
and do not fear its approach. When a native felt that he must die, he
took it calmly and ordered his coffin, which he caused to be brought to
the house while he was still in life. The coffin is hollowed out of a
single log and resembles a canoe. If the sick man after all recovered,
the coffin was kept in a corner of the house till it was wanted. No
attempt was made to hide it or to disguise its purpose. Should a
stranger ask, "What is that?" he would be told, "It is So-and-so's
coffin"; though So-and-so might be present and within hearing.[84]
Nevertheless, when it was clear that a serious illness was about to
terminate fatally, and that all the efforts of the priestly physician or
sorcerer to avert the inevitable end were fruitless, the house would be
filled by wailing women, who danced naked round the mat of the dying
man, cutting themselves with sharp stones or shark's teeth as in a
frenzy, and uttering the most piercing lamentations. This lasted till
the moment of death, when all united in a terrific and prolonged
howl.[85] Similar demonstrations of sorrow were continued or renewed
after the decease. If the departed was a married man and his widow
survived him, she would bruise her flesh with a stone, scratch it with
her nails, and cut her forehead, cheeks, and breast with shark's teeth
or splinters of bamboo till the blood trickled down.[86] Captain Porter
saw a woman with deep wounds still unhealed, which she had inflicted on
her neck, breast, and arms for the loss of her husband, who had been
devoured by a shark.[87] After the death, too, the widow would place
herself in front of the corpse, and three or four girls would surround
her; whereupon they would all engage in a lascivious dance, with
outstretched arms, tripping in cadence to the accompaniment of a funeral
hymn or lamentation, which was chanted by a choir in honour of the dead.
After executing the dance, which would seem to have been intended to
attract the attention of the deceased and recall his wandering spirit,
they would stoop over the corpse, and cry, "He has not stirred! He
stirs not. Alas! alas! he is no more." It was only after they had thus
practised their seductions in vain on the dead man that the widow gave
way to her frantic outburst of sorrow by mauling herself with a sort of
saw.[88] This funeral dance a widow was apparently expected to renew in
public at every festival for months after the death. At a festival,
which he called the Feast of Calabashes, Melville saw four or five old
women, stark naked, holding themselves erect and leaping stiffly into
the air, with their arms pressed close to their sides, like sticks
bobbing up and down in water. They preserved the utmost gravity of
countenance, and continued their strange movements without a single
moment's cessation, though they did not appear to attract the
observation of the crowd around them. The American was told that these
dancing or leaping figures "were bereaved widows, whose partners had
been slain in battle many moons previously; and who, at every festival,
gave public evidence in this manner of their calamities."[89] When the
deceased was a chief, the lamentations and the dances went on day and
night for some time. A priestess or sorceress, in festal costume, led
the choir of female mourners and vaunted the exploits of the dead
warrior, recalling his mighty deeds and the incidents of his life. The
dances were accompanied by the music of drums. The crowd of spectators,
in their best array, ate and drank to repletion, and, flushed with
liquor, abandoned themselves to excesses which transformed the mortuary
chamber, lit up at night by smoky torches, into a scene of low
debauchery. From time to time remarks of a gross nature were addressed
to the dead man on the helpless condition to which he was reduced; and
now and then the women would slash their faces and breasts with
splinters of bamboo in the usual fashion. The orgy went on till the
provisions were completely exhausted, which might not be for a
considerable time, since hecatombs of pigs were sometimes slaughtered
for the purpose of celebrating the obsequies of a chief in a manner
worthy of his rank.[90]
[84] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ pp. 114. _sq._; Eyriaud des
Vergnes, _op. cit._ p. 58. Compare Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 260
_sqq._
[85] C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 263; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C.
Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 249 _sq._
[86] Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 284; Clavel, _op. cit._ p. 39.
[87] Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 121.
[88] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 283 _sq._ Another writer mentions
that at the moment of death it was customary for a number of
matrons to strip themselves naked and execute obscene dances at
the door of the house, crying out at the pitch of their voices,
"Father! father!" See Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 116.
[89] Melville, _Typee_, pp. 180, 201.
[90] Clavel, _op. cit._ pp. 43 _sq._
The soul of the dead was believed not to abandon the corpse definitely
for two days after the death. In the interval it was thought to haunt
the house, watching the conduct of the survivors, and ready to act as a
friend or a foe according as the mourners behaved towards the deceased
and his remains. Hence, to keep the ghost in good humour it was
customary to offer him food, in the shape of breadfruit paste and other
dainties, which were wrapped up in leaves, hung on the edge of the
coffin, and frequently renewed.[91] On the third night after the death a
priest, stepping out on the terrace in front of the house, implored the
wandering soul of the deceased to depart; and by way of enforcing the
request a band of men, armed with spears and other lethal weapons, went
about in the outer darkness, beating the bushes and stabbing the
thatched roofs of the houses in order to drive the lingering ghost away.
If, roused by the clamour, the dogs began to bark, the priest would say,
"The soul is departing."[92]
[91] Clavel, _op. cit._ p. 46.
[92] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 284 _sq._
From the moment of death till the priests had completed the litany or
songs chanted on such occasions, all the assembled people fasted, no one
touched the provisions collected for the funeral feast, and no fire
might be kindled within sight of the house.[93] The litany consisted in
the mumbling of a long speech in an unintelligible language accompanied
by the constant beating of drums.[94] Among the victuals provided for
the funeral feast special importance appears to have been attached to
the head of a pig, which was cut off and attached to the bier.[95] We
are told that the professed intention was thereby "to propitiate the
gods, and obtain for the deceased a safe and peaceable passage through
the lower regions." But, in point of fact the priest took possession of
the pig's head and devoured it secretly, leaving only a small piece of
it under a stone.[96]
[93] C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 265; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C.
Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 251.
[94] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 133.
[95] Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 285.
[96] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 173. Compare Langsdorff, _op.
cit._ i. 133; C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 265;
Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 251.
When death had taken place, the body was washed, neatly dressed in
garments of new cloth, and laid on a bier constructed of bamboos or of
spears and other warlike weapons, fastened together with wicker-work and
spread with mats.[97] If the deceased was a chief and a warrior, his
body would be arrayed in his finest ornaments, and his club, plumed
helmet, necklaces of whale's teeth, and skulls of the enemies he had
killed, would be laid beside him. Thus exposed, the corpse might be kept
for weeks in the house, where, in spite of the stench, the family
continued to eat, drink, and sleep beside it. Sometimes, however, and
perhaps more usually, the body was transferred to a small house or shed
adjoining the dwelling of the deceased, where it received the necessary
attentions. Finally, it was removed to a little hut or shed, where the
bier was supported on posts under a thatched roof. To be buried in the
earth was a mark of ignominy reserved at most for a young girl of the
lowest rank who had died childless. Beside the corpse food was hung for
the use of the ghost, it might be fish, roast pork, or coco-nuts, and
there it was allowed to remain till it rotted and fell to the ground;
none but children would be greedy or impious enough to partake of the
sacred victuals, and that only in the greatest secrecy. Often the house
in which the death had taken place was tabooed and abandoned after the
remains had been deposited in their last home.[98]
[97] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 172 _sq._; Langsdorff, _op.
cit._ i. 133; Lisiansky, _op. cit._ p. 81; C. S. Stewart, _op.
cit._ i. 264.
[98] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ pp. 116 _sq._ As to the
decoration of the corpse, see Clavel, _op. cit._ pp. 43 _sq._ As
to the temporary house or shed in which the body was kept for
some time after death, compare C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 264,
266; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 250. As for
the custom of keeping the body for months in the ordinary house,
surrounded by the family, see Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 286. As to
the practice of hanging food beside the body, even after its
removal to its last place of rest, see J. Dumont d'Urville,
_Voyage au Pole Sud et dans l'Oceanie, Histoire du Voyage_, iv.
(Paris, 1842), p. 33; Clavel, _op. cit._ p. 46.
The bodies of the dead were regularly subjected to a kind of embalmment,
which had the effect of preserving them for a longer or shorter time. As
soon as decomposition appeared imminent, the corpse was stripped of its
ornaments and placed in the usual canoe-shaped coffin, the trunk being
propped up so as to facilitate the work of the embalmers. The task of
embalming was entrusted to women, relations of the deceased, who rubbed
the body daily with coco-nut oil and perfumes. They had no intercourse
with the rest of the family, and took their meals apart without ever
washing their hands. According to one account, the anointment was
performed by night, while during the day the body was exposed to the sun
on the stone platform of the house. The products of decomposition were
carefully received in vessels and carried away to the place of
sepulture; and the corpse was gradually eviscerated through the rectum.
The friction was continued until the desiccated body was reduced to the
state of a mummy, though sometimes, in spite of all precautions, it
crumbled into dust. If the operation was successful, the mummy, wrapt in
many bandages, was covered by a second canoe attached to the first, and
was then placed on a scaffold in a _morai_ or sanctuary specially
consecrated to it. But sometimes the mummy was fastened up to the roof
or wall of the house wherein the person had died; and it might be kept
there even for years. When it was deposited in a _morai_, no woman was
allowed to approach it under pain of death.[99] Sometimes the head was
detached from the body and kept in the house, where it was treated with
respect. Sometimes it was carried away and hidden in some almost
inaccessible cave in the mountains or beside the sea. This was done as a
precaution to save the skulls from falling into the hands of enemies,
who were eager to bear them off as trophies.[100]
[99] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 173; Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i.
133 _sq._; Melville, _Typee_, p. 206; Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp.
286 _sq._; Clavel, _op. cit._ pp. 44 _sq._ In a house in
Nukahiva the missionary Stewart saw a canoe-shaped coffin
containing the remains of a man who had died many years before.
It was raised on a bier of framework, at a height of two or
three feet above the ground. Stewart adds, "The dead bodies of
all persons of high distinction are preserved in their houses
for a long period in this way." See C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i.
259.
[100] Clavel, _op. cit._ pp. 45 _sq._; Baessler, _op. cit._ pp.
233 _sq._
Each family had its own _morai_ or burial-place, where the mouldering
bones or mummies were finally deposited and left to decay.[101] Such
family cemeteries were scattered about the valleys; the choice of a
site seems to have been determined by no special rule.[102] The _morai_
or burial-place of ordinary people was near their houses, and not far
from it was a taboo-house, where the men feasted on the flesh of
pigs.[103] But the cemeteries of chiefs were situated in the interior of
the valleys, often so deeply imbedded in dense foliage that it was not
easy to find them without the guidance of a native.[104] Similarly we
are told that the cemeteries (_morais_) of priests lay quite apart from
all dwellings.[105]
[101] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 127, 173; Langsdorff, _op.
cit._ i. 115, 134. Other writers on the Marquesas in like manner
speak of a _morai_ simply as a place of burial. See Porter, _op.
cit._ ii. 114 ("the gods at the burying-place, or morai, for so
it is called by them"); Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 52 ("un _morai_
(sepulchre) en ruine"); Melville, _Typee_, p. 168 ("the 'morais'
or burying-grounds"). So, too, the term was understood by the
French navigator, J. Dumont d'Urville. See his _Voyage au Pole
Sud, Histoire du Voyage_, iv. (Paris, 1842), pp. 27, 33.
[102] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 253.
[103] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 115. According to Krusenstern
(_op. cit._ i. 127), the _morais_ in general "lie a good way
inland upon hills."
[104] F. D. Bennett, _Narrative of a Whaling Voyage_, i. 329.
[105] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 115.
The ordinary form of a Marquesan _morai_ or burial-place seems to have
been a thatched shed erected on a square or oblong platform of stones,
exactly resembling the stone platforms on which the Marquesan houses
were regularly built. Thus Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz say that "the
_morais_, funeral monuments where the bodies are deposited, are erected
on a stone platform, the base of all Nukahivan edifices."[106] Again,
describing what he calls "a picturesque _morai_," Radiguet observes,
"Four posts, erected on a platform, supported a small plank covered with
a roof of leaves. Under this roof could be seen the remains of a
skeleton, perhaps that of the daughter-in-law of the neighbouring
house.... At the two ends of the platform two upright stones, about ten
feet high, and resembling the Breton _menhirs_, formed an exceptional
ornament to this _morai_, which the bushes were in course of invading
and the storms of demolishing."[107] Again, Stewart describes as follows
what he calls "a depository of the dead": "It stands in the midst of a
beautiful clump of trees, and consists of a platform of heavy stone
work, twenty feet or more square and four or five high, surmounted in
the centre by eight or ten posts arranged in the shape of a grave, and
supporting at a height of six or seven feet a long and narrow roof of
thatch. Close beneath this was the body enclosed in a coffin."[108]
Again, in the island of Tahuata (Santa Christina), Bennett describes a
chief's burial-place as follows: "A low but extensive stone platform,
beneath the shade of a venerable _fau_-tree, marks the more consecrated
ground; and on this is erected a wooden hut, containing an elevated
trough, shaped as a canoe, and holding the perfect skeleton of the late
chief. In front of the sepulchre are two hideous wooden idols, and
several bundles of coco-nut leaves."[109] The shed, which was erected on
the stone platform, and under which the body rested on a bier, seems to
have consisted for the most part simply of a thatched roof supported on
wooden posts.[110] Sometimes, however, instead of a simple shed, open on
all sides, a small house resembling the ordinary houses of the natives
appears to have been erected for the reception of the corpse or mummy.
Thus in the island of Tahuata (Santa Christina) Bennett describes a
burial-place as follows: "The most picturesque mausoleum we noticed was
that which contained the corpse of one of Eutiti's children. It was
placed on the summit of an isolated hill, rising from the bosom of a
well-wooded savannah, and was covered entirely with the leaves of the
fan-palm. The posterior, or tallest wall, was twelve feet high, the
anterior was low, closed by a mat, and decorated with six wooden
pillars, covered with stained cinnet and white cloth. Strips of tapa
[bark-cloth], fixed to a wand, fluttered on the roof, to denote that the
spot was tabooed; and for the same purpose, a row of globular stones,
each the size of a football, and whitened with coral lime, occupied the
top of a low but broad stone wall which encircled the building. The
interior contained nothing but the bier on which the corpse was
laid."[111] From the sketch which Bennett gives of this particular
mausoleum, as he calls it, we gather that the sepulchral hut containing
the body was not raised on a stone platform, but built on the flat.
[106] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 253.
[107] Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 92. One of these stones was said
to have been erected by the French navigator, Captain Marchand,
and to have formerly borne an inscription recording his taking
possession of the island. Hence it would be unsafe to draw any
conclusion from the supposed antiquity of these two tall upright
stones.
[108] C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._ i. 260.
[109] F. D. Bennett, _op. cit._ i. 329.
[110] Compare J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage au Pole Sud, Histoire
du Voyage_, iv. 33, "Sous un hangar se trouvent quelques
supports formant, a 2 metres au-dessus du sol, une estrade sur
laquelle est depose le _toui-papao_. C'est le nom que les
naturels donnent au cadavre enveloppe d'herbes et de _tapa_
(etoffes de papyrus faites dans le pays). On n'apercoit du corps
ainsi habille que les extremites des doigts des pieds et des
mains."
[111] F. D. Bennett, _op. cit._ i. 331.
There seems to be no evidence that the stone platforms on which the
sepulchral sheds or huts of the Marquesans were erected ever took the
shape of stepped or terraced pyramids like the massive stone pyramids of
Tahiti and Tonga. So far as the mortuary platforms of the Marquesans are
described, they appear to have been quadrangular piles of stone, with
upright sides, not stepped or terraced. Megalithic monuments in the form
of stepped or terraced pyramids seem to have been very rare in the
Marquesas Islands; indeed, it is doubtful whether they existed at all.
With regard to the island of Tahuata (Santa Christina), it is positively
affirmed by Bennett that none of the valleys contain "any _morais_ or
other buildings devoted to religious purposes, nor any public
idols";[112] and by _morais_ he probably means stepped pyramids like
those of Tahiti and Tonga. However, in the valley of Taipii (Typee), in
Nukahiva, a megalithic monument, built in terraces, was seen by Melville
in 1842. He describes it as follows:
[112] F. D. Bennett, _op. cit._ i. 322.
"One day in returning from this spring by a circuitous path, I came upon
a scene which reminded me of Stonehenge and the architectural labours of
the Druids. At the base of one of the mountains, and surrounded on all
sides by dense groves, a series of vast terraces of stone rises, step by
step, for a considerable distance up the hillside. These terraces cannot
be less than one hundred yards in length and twenty in width. Their
magnitude, however, is less striking than the immense size of the blocks
composing them. Some of the stones, of an oblong shape, are from ten to
fifteen feet in length, and five or six feet thick. Their sides are
quite smooth, but though square, and of pretty regular formation, they
bear no mark of the chisel. They are laid together without cement, and
here and there show gaps between. The topmost terrace and the lower one
are somewhat peculiar in their construction. They have both a
quadrangular depression in the centre, leaving the rest of the terrace
elevated several feet above it. In the intervals of the stones immense
trees have taken root, and their broad boughs, stretching far over and
interlacing together, support a canopy almost impenetrable to the sun.
Overgrowing the greater part of them, and climbing from one to another,
is a wilderness of vines, in whose sinewy embrace many of the stones lie
half-hidden, while in some places a thick growth of bushes entirely
covers them. There is a wild pathway which obliquely crosses two of
these terraces, and so profound is the shade, so dense the vegetation,
that a stranger to the place might pass along it without being aware of
their existence.
"These structures bear every indication of a very high antiquity, and
Kory-Kory, who was my authority in all matters of scientific research,
gave me to understand that they were coeval with the creation of the
world; that the great gods themselves were the builders; and that they
would endure until time shall be no more. Kory-Kory's prompt
explanation, and his attributing the work to a divine origin, at once
convinced me that neither he nor the rest of his countrymen knew
anything about them."[113] Melville was accordingly disposed to
attribute the erection of these remarkable terraces to an extinct and
forgotten race.[114] The hypothesis is all the more probable because the
monument appears to have been entirely abandoned and unused by the
natives during the time when they have been known to Europeans. But it
is doubtful whether the edifice was a pyramid; all that Melville's
somewhat vague description implies is that it consisted of a series of
terraces built one above the other on the hillside.
[113] Melville, _Typee_, pp. 166 _sq._
[114] Melville, _Typee_, p. 167.
According to some accounts the remains of the dead, instead of being
deposited in sheds or huts erected on stone platforms, were buried in
the platforms themselves. Thus, according to William Crook, the first
missionary to the Marquesans, "they have a _morai_ in each district,
where the dead are buried beneath a pavement of large stones."[115]
Similarly, in Nukahiva two or three large quadrangular platforms
(_pi-pis_), heavily flagged, enclosed with regular stone walls and
almost hidden by the interlacing branches of enormous trees, were
pointed out as burial-places to Melville, and he was told that the
bodies "were deposited in rude vaults beneath the flagging, and were
suffered to remain there without being disinterred. Although nothing
could be more strange and gloomy than the aspect of these places, where
the lofty trees threw their dark shadows over rude blocks of stone, a
stranger looking at them would have discerned none of the ordinary
evidences of a place of sepulture."[116] To the same effect, perhaps,
Porter observes that, "when the flesh is mouldered from the bones, they
are, as I have been informed, carefully cleansed: some are kept for
relics, and some are deposited in the _morais_."[117] Again, Krusenstern
says that twelve months after the death "the corpse is broken into
pieces, and the bones are packed in a small box made of the wood of the
bread-fruit tree, and carried to the _morai_ or burial place, where no
woman is allowed to approach under pain of death."[118] However, these
statements do not necessarily imply that the bones were buried under the
stones of the platform at the _morai_.
[115] Quoted by J. Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern
Pacific Ocean_, p. 144.
[116] Melville, _Typee_, p. 205.
[117] Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 123.
[118] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 173.
But whether deposited on biers or buried under the pavement, the remains
of the dead were liable to be carried off in time of war by foes, who
regarded such an exploit as a great deed of heroism. Hence when an
invasion of the enemy in force was expected, the custom was to remove
the bodies from the _morai_ and bury them elsewhere.[119] The heads of
enemies killed in battle were invariably kept and hung up as trophies of
victory in the house of the conqueror. They seem to have been smoked in
order to preserve them better.[120] It is said that they were used as
cups to drink kava out of.[121]
[119] Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 134.
[120] Melville, _Typee_, p. 206.
[121] Clavel, _op. cit._ p. 47.
After ten months or a year the obsequies were concluded by another
funeral feast, which might last from eight to thirty days according to
the rank of the deceased and the opulence of his family. At the same
time offerings of food were presented afresh at the tomb, and the
decorations were renewed, consisting of branches and leaves and strips
of white bark-cloth, which waved like flags at the end of little white
wands. At these anniversary feasts, to which, if the deceased was a man
of quality, only chiefs were in many cases admitted, great quantities
of pigs were consumed.[122] The intention of the feast is said to have
been to thank the gods for having permitted the dead person to arrive
safely in the other world.[123]
[122] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ pp. 117 _sq._
[123] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 173.
Sec. 9. _Fate of the Soul after Death_
The souls of the dead were supposed to depart either to an upper or to a
lower world, either to heaven or to a subterranean region called
Havaiki. The particular destination of a soul after death was
determined, not by moral considerations, not by the virtue or vice of
the deceased, but by the rank he had occupied in this life: people of
quality went to the upper world, and common people went to the lower, to
Havaiki.[124] According to a more precise account, heaven was inhabited
by deities of the highest order, by women who had died in childbed, by
warriors who had fallen on the field of battle, by suicides, and
especially by the aristocratic class of the chiefs. This celestial
region was supposed to be a happy land, abounding in bread-fruit paste
(_popoi_), pork, and fish, and offering the companionship of the most
beautiful women imaginable. There the bread-fruit trees dropped their
ripe fruit every moment to the ground, and the supply of coco-nuts and
bananas never failed. There the souls reposed on mats much finer than
those of Nukahiva; and every day they bathed in rivers of coco-nut oil.
In that happy land there were plenty of plumes and feathers, and
boars'-tusks, and sperm-whale teeth far better than even white men can
boast of. The nether world, on the other hand, was peopled with deities
of the second class and by ordinary human beings, who had no pretensions
to gentility. But it was not a place of misery much less of punishment
or torture; on the contrary, we are told that both the upper and the
lower regions were happier than the earth which the living inhabit.[125]
The approach to the lower world, curiously enough, was by sea. The soul
sailed away in a coffin shaped like a canoe (_pahaa_). When it came
near the channel which divides the island Tahuata from the island
Hivaoa, it was met by two deities or two opposing influences, one of
which tried to push the soul into a narrow strait between Tahuata and a
certain rock in the sea, while the other deity or influence endeavoured
to contrive that the soul should keep the broad channel between the rock
and Hivaoa. The souls that were thrust into the narrow strait were
killed; whereas such as kept the open channel were conducted safe by a
merciful god to their destination.[126]
[124] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 44.
[125] Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 220; Melville, _Typee_, p. 185.
Compare Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 40.
[126] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 220 _sq._
Sometimes the land of the dead was identified with a happy island or
islands called Tiburones lying somewhere in the ocean to the west of
Nukahiva. Not uncommonly natives of the Marquesas sailed away in great
double canoes to seek and find these happy isles, but were never heard
of again. On one occasion, for example, forty men in the island of
Ua-pu, who had revolted against their chief and been defeated, embarked
secretly by night and put to sea, hoping to discover the Fortunate
Islands, where they would be beyond the reach of their offended lord,
and where they might pass the remainder of their days in liberty and
bliss. What became of them is unknown, for they were seen and heard of
no more in their native island.[127]
[127] Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 51 _sq._; Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp.
238 note, 239, 269, 270; Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op.
cit._ pp. 238 _sq._; Mathias G----, _op. cit._ pp. 234 _sq._
But even the souls that went to heaven were supposed to stand in need of
a canoe in order to reach the place of bliss. On this point Porter
writes: "I endeavoured to ascertain whether they had an idea of a future
state of rewards and punishments, and the nature of their heaven. As
respects the latter article, they believed it to be an island, somewhere
in the sky, abounding with everything desirable; that those killed in
war and carried off by their friends, go there, provided they are
furnished with a canoe and provisions; but that those who are carried
off by the enemy, never reach it, unless a sufficient number of the
enemy can be obtained to paddle his canoe there. For this reason they
were so anxious to procure a crew for their priest, who was killed and
carried off by the Happahs. They have neither rewards nor punishments
in this world, and I could not learn that they expected any in the
next."[128]
[128] Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 113.
In the valley of Taipii (Typee), in the island of Nukahiva, Captain
Porter visited "the chief place of religious ceremony." It was a
platform of the usual sort situated in a fine grove at the foot of a
steep mountain. On the platform was an idol of hard stone, rudely
representing a deity in human shape of about life size and in a
squatting posture. Arranged on either side of this idol, as well as in
front and rear, were several other images of about the same size and of
the same model, but better carved out of bread-fruit wood. The place was
decorated with streamers of white cloth. A few paces from the grave were
four fine war canoes, furnished with outriggers, and decorated with
human hair, coral shells, and many white streamers. In the stern of each
canoe was the effigy of a man with a paddle, steering, in full dress,
decked with plumes, ear-rings, and all the usual ornaments. On enquiring
of the natives, Captain Porter was informed that the dignified effigy
seated in the stern of the most splendid canoe represented a priest who
had been killed not long before by their enemies the Happahs. In the
bottom of the priest's canoe Captain Porter found the putrefying bodies
of two Taipiis (Typees) whom he and his men had recently killed in
battle; and lying about the canoe he saw many other human carcasses,
with the flesh still on them. The other canoes, he was told, belonged to
different warriors who had been killed or had died not long since. "I
asked them," continues Captain Porter, "why they had placed their
effigies in the canoes, and also why they put the bodies of the dead
Typees in that of the priest? They told me (as Wilson interpreted) that
they were going to heaven, and that it was impossible to get there
without canoes. The canoe of the priest being large, he was unable to
manage it himself, nor was it right that he should, he being now a god.
They had, therefore, placed in it the bodies of the Happas and Typees,
which had been killed since his death, to paddle him to the place of his
destination; but he had not been able yet to start, for the want of a
full crew, as it would require ten to paddle her, and as yet they had
only procured eight. They told me also that the taboo, laid in
consequence of his death, would continue until he had started on his
voyage, which he would not be able to do until they had killed two more
of their enemies, and by this means completed the crew. I inquired if he
took any sea stock with him. They told me he did, and pointing to some
red hogs in an enclosure, said that they were intended for him, as well
as a quantity of bread-fruit, coco-nuts, etc., which would be collected
from the trees in the grove. I inquired if he had far to go; they
replied, no: and pointing to a small square stone enclosure, informed me
that was their heaven, that he was to go there. This place was tabooed,
they told me, for every one except their priests."[129]
[129] Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 109-111. A similar, or the same,
effigy of a dead chief seated in his canoe was seen by Melville
in the same valley (_Typee_, pp. 183 _sq._). He says that "the
canoe was about seven feet in length; of a rich, dark-coloured
wood, handsomely carved, and adorned in many places with
variegated bindings of stained sinnate [cinnet], into which were
ingeniously wrought a number of sparkling sea-shells, and a belt
of the same shells ran all round it. The body of the figure--of
whatever material it might have been made--was effectually
concealed in a heavy robe of brown tappa [bark-cloth], revealing
only the hands and head; the latter skilfully carved in wood,
and surmounted by a superb arch of plumes."
But it was deemed necessary to provide a dead priest or chief with human
victims for other purposes than to paddle his canoe to heaven. When a
great chief died, two commoners were sometimes sacrificed for the
purpose of escorting him to the abode of bliss; one of them carried the
chief's girdle, and the other bore the head of the pig that had been
slaughtered for the funeral feast. The head was intended as a present to
the warden of the infernal regions, who, if he did not get this
perquisite, would revile and stone the ghost, and shut the door in his
face.[130] The number of human victims sacrificed at the death of a
priest varied with the respect and fear which he had inspired in his
lifetime;[131] a common number seems to have been three.[132]
[130] Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 163.
[131] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ p. 228.
[132] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i, 170.
The runaway English sailor, Roberts, who had long resided in the
islands, assured the Russian explorer Lisiansky "that, on the death of a
priest, three men must be sacrificed; two of whom are hung up in the
burying-ground, while the third is cut to pieces, and eaten by
visitors; all but the head, which is placed upon one of the idols. When
the flesh of the first two are wasted away, the bones that remain are
burnt. The custom of the country requires, that the men destined for
sacrifice should belong to some neighbouring nation, and accordingly
they are generally stolen. This occasions a war of six, and sometimes of
twelve, months: its duration, however, depends upon the nearest relation
of the deceased priest; who, as soon as he is acquainted with his death,
retires to a place of taboo; and till he chooses to come out, the blood
of the two parties does not cease to flow. During his retirement, he is
furnished with everything he may require, human flesh not
excepted."[133]
[133] U. Lisiansky, _Voyage round the World_, pp. 81 _sq._
A curious mode of preparing a dead man to appear to advantage before the
gods in the other world was to flay his corpse. A Catholic missionary
tells us that when a dead body began to swell up, in consequence of
internal putrefaction, it was customary to flay it and to preserve the
skin as a precious relic in the family treasury, where the eye of a
profane stranger could never fall on it.[134] The reason for observing
the custom is not mentioned by this missionary, but it is explained by
another missionary, Father Amable. It happened that the king or head
chief of the island of Tahuata died, and that his body was brought to
the house of the queen on the bay where Father Amable resided. For
thirty days she kept the corpse in the house and occupied herself with
skinning it with her fingers. Questioned by the missionary as to her
reasons for this strange procedure, she answered that her husband's body
must be without spot or stain, in order that the great goddess Upu might
give him leave to dwell in her land and to bathe in her lake. For this
deity rules over a sort of submarine Eden, planted with all sorts of
excellent fruits and beautified by the calm waters of an azure lake. The
natives of Tahuata believe that the souls of all who die in the
archipelago assemble on the top of a high mountain called Kiukiu. When a
great multitude of souls is there gathered together, the sea opens and
the souls fall plump down into the paradise of the goddess Upu.
However, not all of them are permitted to enter the happy land and to
enjoy the pleasures which it offers. Only such are admitted as have
owned in their lifetime many servants and many pigs and have not been
wicked. Further, none may enter in who bear on their body any marks of
tattooing.[135] Hence the reason for flaying dead bodies seems to have
been to efface, by removing the skin, the tattooed marks which would
have acted as a fatal bar to the entrance of the ghost into paradise. As
to the souls of slaves and the poor, in the opinion of the natives of
Tahuata they go to a gloomy land, which is never illumined by the sun,
and where there is nothing but muddy water to drink.[136] Nevertheless
the people would seem to have believed that the souls of the dead
lingered for a time beside their mouldering bodies before they took
their departure for the far country. In this belief they sacrificed to
them pigs, some baked, and some alive. The baked pigs they put in a
hollow log and hung from the roof of the hut, and they said that a god
named Mapuhanui, who in the beginning had bestowed pigs on men, used to
come and feast on the carcasses in company with the ghost. But when they
offered live pigs, they tethered the animals to the hut in which the
dead body lay, and they fed them till the flesh dropped from the
skeleton; after that they allowed the pigs to die of hunger.[137]
Perhaps, like some other peoples, they imagined that the ghost hovered
about his remains so long as the flesh adhered to the bones, but that
when even that faint semblance of life had vanished he went away and had
no further occasion for pigs, whether alive or dead.
[134] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 116.
[135] Lettre du R. P. Amable, in _Annales de la Propagation de
la Foi_, xix. (1847) pp. 22 _sq._, 24.
[136] Lettre du R. P. Amable, _op. cit._ p. 24.
[137] Lettre du R. P. Amable, _op. cit._ pp. 23 _sq._
However, the souls of the dead were not supposed to be permanently
confined to the other world. After a long sojourn in it, all alike,
whatever the region they inhabited in their disembodied state, could
return to earth and be born again.[138] Indeed, according to the natives
of Nukahiva, the interval between death and reincarnation was not unduly
long; for "every one here is persuaded, that the soul of a grandfather
is transmitted by Nature into the body of his grandchildren; and that,
if an unfruitful wife were to place herself under the corpse of her
deceased grandfather, she would be sure to become pregnant."[139]
Occasionally the soul of a dead person might even inhabit the body of an
animal. Once when a whale was stranded on one of the islands, a
priestess declared that it was the soul of a certain priest, which would
wander until eight human victims were sacrificed to the gods. In vain
her son would have substituted turtles for human beings; the people
would not hear of it; the prescribed victims were captured from a
neighbouring tribe and put to death in order to lay the ghost of the
whale, or rather of the priest who had animated the whale's body.[140]
[138] Lettre du R. P. Amable, _op. cit._ p. 24.
[139] Lisiansky, _op. cit._ p. 89.
[140] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 161 _sq._
But the souls of the dead were also believed to return from the spirit
land for other purposes than to be born again in the flesh. They might
come as ghosts to haunt and torment the living, and as such they were
greatly dreaded by the people.[141] The first watch of the night was the
hour when they were supposed especially to come on errands of
mischief.[142] Particularly dreaded were the ghosts of high priests and
great chiefs, who retained in their spiritual form the passions and the
rancours which they had nursed in life, and who returned in ghostly
shape to earth to meddle with the affairs of the living, and to punish
even trivial offences. To guard against these dangerous intrusions, the
intervention of a priest or priestess was deemed indispensable; it was
his or her business to counteract a spell cast on a family, or to heal a
sickness inflicted on an individual by one of these ghostly
vagrants.[143] Such was the fear of wandering ghosts that no Marquesan
would dare to stir a step abroad at night without the light of a torch;
for well he knew that evil spirits lurked beside the path to knock down
and throttle any rash wayfarer who should dare to leave his footsteps
unillumined.[144] Indeed, we are told that, of all beliefs in the minds
of the natives, the belief in ghosts was the most deeply rooted. It is
impossible to express the dread which they felt of spectres and
apparitions; nobody was exempt from it. But it was only at night that
these phantoms were to be feared. Though they remained invisible, they
revealed themselves to the terror-stricken wanderer by sound and touch;
the least noise heard in the darkness disclosed their presence; the
least contact with them was a sentence of death, sudden or slow, but
sure. Hence, if a man was obliged to go out after sunset, he would
always take somebody with him to bear him company, even if he had to
wake a comrade for the purpose. Among the women the fear of ghosts was
yet greater, many of them would not stir abroad on a moonless night even
in company. In passing by a burial-ground or a solitary tomb, people
used to throw food towards it for the purpose of appeasing the ghost,
who otherwise would have attacked them.[145]
[141] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 40.
[142] Mathias G----, _op. cit._ p. 210.
[143] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 224 _sq._
[144] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 227, 240.
[145] Eyriaud des Vergnes, _op. cit._ pp. 31 _sq._
This deep-seated fear of the dead has survived the conversion, real or
nominal, of the Marquesans to Christianity. No native would even now
venture into a cave where the remains of the dead have been deposited,
not though the greatest treasures were to be found there, for such spots
are believed to be constantly haunted by the ghosts of the departed.
Nobody, it is said, would live in a house in which somebody has died;
every such dwelling is immediately burnt down. Hence, when a person is
grievously sick, a little primitive hut is erected beside the house, and
he is carried out to die in it, and when he is dead, the hut is in like
manner destroyed with fire.[146] A woman will sometimes commit suicide
in order that her ghost may haunt and torment her unfaithful
husband.[147]
[146] Baessler, _op. cit._ p. 234.
[147] Baessler, _op. cit._ pp. 193 _sq._
On the other hand, ghosts in the olden time had also their utility, for
they could be summoned up by a priest or priestess to give information
on various subjects, such as the issue of an illness. On these occasions
the wizard would hold a conversation with the spirit, whose voice could
be heard by the listeners, though his or her shape, as usual, was
invisible in the darkness. Sceptics thought that such communications
were made by means of ventriloquism, and indeed a priestess, who had
professed to evoke the soul of a dead chieftainess, solemnly maintained
that she could make the voice of anybody, whether dead or alive, to
speak from her stomach.[148]
[148] Radiguet, _op. cit._ pp. 227-238.
In such beliefs and customs are contained as in germ the whole theory
and practice of the worship of the dead.
NOTE.--We possess no thorough account of the native Marquesan society
and religion as these existed before they were transformed by European
influence. Some of the writers who have described the islanders and
their customs spent only a few days or at most a few weeks among them.
Captain Cook was at the Marquesas only five days, from the 6th to the
11th of April 1774.[149] The French explorer Marchand spent eight days
in the islands from the 13th to the 21st of June 1791.[150] The Russian
explorers Krusenstern and Lisiansky were with their two ships, the
_Nadeshda_ and _Neva_, at Nukahiva for ten days, from the 7th to the
17th of May 1804; along with them was the naturalist Langsdorff, who
wrote an independent account of the voyage.[151] But though their stay
was short, they had the advantage of meeting with two Europeans, an
Englishman named E. Roberts, and a Frenchman named Jean (or Joseph)
Baptiste Cabri, who had lived long in the islands and spoke the native
language. These men acted as interpreters to the Russians and supplied
them with most of the information which they give in their books
concerning the customs and beliefs of the Marquesans. Roberts told them
that he had been seven years in Nukahiva and two years previously in
Santa Christina (Tau-ata); that he had been put ashore on the latter
island out of an English merchant ship, the crew of which had mutinied
against their captain and could not prevail upon him to join their
party; and that in Nukahiva he had lately married a relation of the
king's, by which he acquired great consideration, so that it would be
easy for him to be of assistance to them. At the same time he earnestly
warned them against the Frenchman, who had also resided for some years
in Nukahiva, but whose character he painted in very dark colours. The
two Russian captains, Krusenstern and Lisiansky, accordingly put their
trust in Roberts and drew most of their information concerning the
natives from him. On the other hand their naturalist, Langsdorff, made
most use of the Frenchman. He admitted, indeed, that the Englishman was
a man of better character, greater natural intelligence, and much higher
education; but on the other hand he tells us that the Frenchman had
been longer in the island and possessed a more thorough mastery of the
language and a greater intimacy with the natives, among whom he had
lived as a savage among savages so long that he had almost forgotten his
own native tongue. But Langsdorff took care to question both these men
and only accepted as true statements in which they agreed with each
other, and to this agreement he naturally attached the greater weight
because his two informants were bitterly hostile to each other and
therefore were unlikely to unite in deceiving him.[152] On the whole,
then, the account which Langsdorff gives of Marquesan society and
religion is perhaps more trustworthy as well as fuller than that of his
two compatriots and companions, Krusenstern and Lisiansky.
[149] J. Cook, _Voyages_, iii. 274-281; compare G. Forster,
_Voyage round the World_ (London, 1777), ii. 5 _sqq._
[150] C. P. Claret Fleurieu, _Voyage round the World performed
during the years 1790, 1791, and 1792 by Etienne Marchand_
(London, 1801), i. 31, 51. Marchand's brief account is
supplemented from other sources by his editor Fleurieu (_op.
cit._ i. 55 _sqq._).
[151] A. J. von Krusenstern, _Voyage round the World in the
years 1803, 1804, 1805, and 1806_ (London, 1813), i. 108 _sq._,
133 _sqq._; U. Lisiansky, _Voyage round the World_ (London,
1814), pp. 62, 95; G. H. von Langsdorff, _Bemerkungen auf einer
Reise um die Welt in den Jahren 1803 bis 1807_ (Frankfurt am
Main, 1812), i. 75, 161.
[152] Krusenstern, _op. cit._ i. 110-112; Lisiansky, _op. cit._
p. 79; Langsdorff, _op. cit._ i. 77, 83-85. As to the subsequent
history of Roberts and Cabri, see Vincendon-Dumoulin et C.
Desgraz, _Iles Marquises ou Nouka-hiva_ (Paris, 1843), pp.
356-359.
Captain David Porter of the United States Navy was with his ship the
_Essex_ at Nukahiva from October 24th till December 9th, 1813.[153] A
great part of his time was spent on shore and in close contact with the
natives, and though he did not learn the language, he was able to employ
as an interpreter an Englishman named Wilson, who had lived for many
years in the islands, spoke the language of the natives with the same
facility as his own, and had become a Marquesan in every respect except
in colour. He proved indispensable to the American as an organ of
communication with the people; and much of the information which Porter
gives concerning the customs of the Marquesans was derived by him from
this man.[154]
[153] Captain David Porter, _Journal of a Cruise made to the
Pacific Ocean in the United States frigate Essex in the years
1812, 1813, and 1814_, Second Edition (New York, 1822), ii. 5,
141.
[154] D. Porter, _op. cit._ ii. 17 _sq._
The American naval chaplain, the Rev. C. S. Stewart, paid about a
fortnight's visit to Nukahiva, from July 27th to August 13th, 1829,
while his ship, the _Vincennes_, was anchored at the island. But he
received much information from the Rev. W. P. Crook, who spent nearly
two years (1797 and 1798) in the Marquesas, having been the first
missionary landed in the islands by the missionary ship _Duff_. During
his residence in the islands Mr. Crook kept a journal, which he allowed
Mr. Stewart to consult. The contents of the journal corroborated Mr.
Stewart's own observations as to the inhabitants, and the account which
he gives of the religion of the islanders is based mainly on the
information derived from Mr. Crook[155] and is therefore valuable; for
at the time when Mr. Crook landed in the Marquesas the customs and
beliefs of the islanders were still practically unaffected by contact
with Europeans.
[155] C. S. Stewart, _Visit to the South Seas_ (London, 1832),
i. pp. x _sq._, 193, 331. The writer speaks (p. 331) of his stay
of "a fortnight at the Washington Islands." Mr. Crook first
landed in the island of Santa Christina (Tau-ata) on June 6th,
1797. See James Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern
Pacific Ocean_ (London, 1799), pp. 129 _sqq._ As to his
subsequent history in the islands, see Vincendon-Dumoulin et C.
Desgraz, _Iles Marquises ou Nouka-hiva_, pp. 35-40.
The surgeon F. D. Bennett, on a whaling voyage spent a few days in
Santa Christina (Tau-ata), from February 28th to March 4th, 1835; and
his descriptions of what he saw are good so far as they go; but
naturally he could collect but little accurate information as to the
habits and ideas of the people in so short a time.[156]
[156] F. D. Bennett, _Narrative of a Whaling Voyage round the
Globe from the year 1833 to 1836_ (London, 1840), i 296, 346.
One of the early Catholic missionaries to the Marquesas, Father Mathias
G----, spent two years in the islands and has given us, in a series of
letters, an account of the native customs and beliefs, which, though far
from complete or systematic, is based on personal observation and is
among the best that we possess.[157]
[157] Le P. Mathias G----, _Lettres sur les Iles Marquises_
(Paris, 1843). The writer is not explicit as to the dates of his
residence in the Marquesas; but he tells us that he spent two
years in habitual intercourse with the natives (p. 49), and from
other allusions which he makes in his narrative (pp. 28 _sq._)
it would seem that the years were 1839 and 1840. The first
Catholic missionaries landed in 1838 (_ib._ p. 22), and others
in 1839 (_ib._ pp. 23 _sq._). Among the latter were Fathers
Garcia and Guilmard (_ib._ p. 24). Father G----may have been one
of them.
Hermann Melville lived among the Taipiis (Typees) in Nukahiva for more
than four months,[158] and wrote a lively narrative of his experiences.
His personal observations are valuable, but as he did not master the
native language, he was not able to throw much light on the inner life
of the people, and in particular on their religious ideas.
[158] H. Melville, _Typee_ (London, _Everyman's Library_), p.
254.
On the 1st of May, 1842, the Marquesas Islands were taken possession of
for France by the French Admiral, Du Petit-Thouars;[159] and next year,
to satisfy the interest of the French public in their new possession, a
comprehensive work on the islands and their inhabitants was published by
MM. Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz.[160] The authors had visited the
islands with the expedition of the French navigator, J. Dumont
d'Urville, in his ships the _Astrolabe_ and the _Zelee_. But as the
expedition stayed only about a week at Nukahiva, from August 26th to
September 3rd, 1838,[161] the writers had little opportunity of making
personal observations. Their work is mainly a careful compilation from
earlier sources, and as such it is a useful and trustworthy summary of
what was known about the archipelago and its inhabitants down to the
date of publication.
[159] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _op. cit._ pp. 119
_sqq._
[160] Vincendon-Dumoulin et C. Desgraz, _Iles Marquises ou
Nouka-hiva_ (Paris, 1843).
[161] J. Dumont d'Urville, _Voyage au Pole Sud et dans
l'Oceanie, Histoire du Voyage_, iv. (Paris, 1842), pp. 5, 49.
Max Radiguet, one of the members of the expedition to the Marquesas
under Admiral Du Petit-Thouars, passed a considerable time in the
islands and wrote a graphic account of his experiences, which contains
some valuable information as to the natives, their customs, religion,
and mythology.[162] In the part which concerns the mythology he was
assisted by an officer of artillery, M. Rohr, who had lived for several
years in Nukahiva and was familiar with the language and customs of the
people.[163]
[162] Max Radiguet, _Les Derniers Sauvages_, Nouvelle Edition
(Paris, 1882). The author does not inform us as to the exact
length of his stay in the islands.
[163] M. Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 221 note.
In 1877 a good general account of the archipelago and its inhabitants
was published at Paris. The author was a naval lieutenant, P. E. Eyriaud
des Vergnes, who having lived in the islands in the official capacity of
Resident for about six years (from 1868 to 1874) had ample time and
opportunity for obtaining accurate information on the subject.[164] His
work, though somewhat slight, is valuable so far as it goes; but it does
not tell us much about the native religion, which in his time had
probably lost a good deal of its original character through the
influence of the missionaries and of civilisation.[165]
[164] P. E. Eyriaud des Vergnes, _L'Archipel des Iles Marquises_
(Paris, 1877).
[165] Some years previously a naval lieutenant, M. Jouan, who
had been in command of the French military post at Nukahiva,
published in the _Revue Coloniale_ (1857-1858) some notes on the
Marquesas, which are said to contain some useful information on
the archipelago. See M. Radiguet, _op. cit._ p. 310 note. I have
not seen the work of M. Jouan; but according to Radiguet it
shows that in the twelve years and more which had elapsed since
the French occupation of the islands the presence of French
missionaries and of a French garrison had done little to
civilise the natives.
Some years later, in 1881 and 1882, a French naval doctor, Clavel by
name, passed six months in the Marquesas. During his stay he made
personal observations and collected information on the natives. These he
subsequently published in a little work, which contains much of
value;[166] but when he wrote almost all the natives had been nominally
converted to Christianity and their ancient religion was practically
extinct.[167]
[166] _Les Marquisiens_, par M. le Docteur Clavel (Paris, 1885).
[167] Clavel, _op. cit._ pp. 68-71.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century the German traveller Arthur
Baessler paid a short visit to the Marquesas. In his book of travel in
the South Sea he has given us descriptions of the islands and the people
as he saw them, including some account of the scanty remains of their
stone monuments and images.[168]
[168] Arthur Baessler, _Neue Suedsee-Bilder_ (Berlin, 1900), pp.
189-242. The writer omits to mention the date of his visit to
the islands, and the length of his stay in them.