Part 54 (1/2)
”The men were allowed to eat the flesh of the pig, and of fowls, and a variety of fish, cocoanuts, and plantains, and whatever was presented as an offering to the G.o.ds; these the females, on pain of death, were forbidden to touch, as it was supposed they would pollute them. The fires at which the men's food was cooked were also sacred, and were forbidden to be used by the females. The baskets in which their provision was kept, and the house in which the men ate, were also sacred, and prohibited to the females under the same cruel penalty. Hence the inferior food, both for wives, daughters, etc., was cooked at separate fires, deposited in distinct baskets, and eaten in lonely solitude by the females, in little huts erected for the purpose.”
Not content with this, when one man wished to abuse another in a particularly offensive way he would use some expression referring to this degraded condition of the women, such as ”mayst thou be baked as food for thy mother.” Young children were deliberately taught to disregard their mother, the father encouraging them in their insults and violence (205). Cook (220) found that Tahitian women were often treated with a degree of harshness, or rather ”brutality,” which one would scarcely suppose a man would bestow on an object for whom he had the least affection. Nothing, however, is more common than ”to see the men beat them without mercy” (II., 220). They killed more female than male infants, because, as they said, the females were useless for war, the fisheries, or the service of the temple. For the sick they had no sympathy; at times they murdered them or buried them alive. (Ellis, I., 340; II., 281.) In battle they gave no quarter, even to women or children. (Hawkesworth, II., 244.)
”Every horrid torture was practised. The females experienced brutality and murder, and the tenderest infants were perhaps transfixed to the mother's heart by a ruthless weapon--caught up by ruffian hands, and dashed against the rocks or the trees--or wantonly thrown up into the air, and caught on the point of the warrior's spear, where it writhed in agony, and died, ... some having two or three infants hanging on the spear they bore across their shoulders” (I., 235-36). The bodies of females slain in war were treated with ”a degree of brutality as inconceivable as it was detestable.”
TWO STORIES OF TAHITIAN INFATUATION
While ferocity, cruelty, habitual wantonness and general coa.r.s.eness are fatal obstacles to sentimental love, they may be accompanied, as we have seen, by the violent sensual infatuation which is so often mistaken for love. Unsuccessful Tahitian suitors have been known to commit suicide under the influence of revenge and despair, as is stated by Ellis (I., 209), who also notes two instances of violent individual preference.
The chief of Eimeo, twenty years old, of a mild disposition, became attached to a Huahine girl and tendered proposals of marriage. She was a niece of the princ.i.p.al roatira in the island, but though her family was willing, she declined all his proposals. He discontinued his ordinary occupations, and repaired to the habitation of the individual whose favor he was so anxious to obtain. Here he appeared subject to the deepest melancholy, and from morning to night, day after day, he attended his mistress, performing humiliating offices with apparent satisfaction. His disappointment finally became the topic of general conversation. At length the girl was induced to accept him. They were publicly married and lived very comfortably together for a few months, when the wife died.
In the other instance the girl was the lover and the man unwilling. A belle of Huahine became exceedingly fond of the society of a young man who was temporarily staying on the island and living in the same house. It was soon intimated to him that she wished to become his companion for life. The intimation, however, was disregarded by the young man, who expressed his intention to prosecute his voyage. The young woman became unhappy, and made no secret of the cause of her distress. She was a.s.siduous in redoubling her efforts to please the individual whose affection she was desirous to retain. At this period Ellis never saw him either in the house of his friend or walking abroad without the young woman by his side. Finding the object of her attachment, who was probably about eighteen years of age, unmoved by her attentions, she not only became exceedingly unhappy, but declared that if she continued to receive the same indifference and neglect, she would either strangle or drown herself. Her friends now interfered, using their endeavors with the young man. He relented, returned the attentions he had received, and the two were married.
Their happiness, however, was of short duration. The attachment which had been so ardent in the bosom of the young woman before marriage was superseded by a dislike as powerful, and though he seemed not unkind to her, she not only treated him with insult but finally left him.
”The marriage tie,” says Ellis (I., 213),
”was probably one of the weakest and most brittle that existed among them; neither party felt themselves bound to abide by it any longer than it suited their convenience. The slightest cause was often sufficient to occasion or justify the separation.”
CAPTAIN COOK ON TAHITIAN LOVE
It has been said of Captain Cook that his maps and topographical observations are characterized by remarkable accuracy. The same may be said in general of his observations regarding the natives of the islands he visited more than a century ago. He, too, noted some cases of strong personal preference among Tahitians, but this did not mislead him into attributing to them a capacity for true love:
”I have seen several instances where the women have preferred personal beauty to interest, though I must own that, even in these cases, they seem scarcely susceptible of those delicate sentiments that are the result of mutual affection; and I believe that there is less Platonic love in Otaheite than in any other country.”
Not that Captain Cook was infallible. When he came across the Tonga group he gave it the name of ”Friendly Islands,” because of the apparently amicable disposition of the natives toward him; but, as a matter of fact, their intention was to ma.s.sacre him and his crew and take the two s.h.i.+ps--a plan which would have been put in execution if the chiefs had not had a dispute as to the exact mode and time of making the a.s.sault.[188] Cook was pleased with the appearance and the ways of these islanders; they seemed kind, and he was struck at seeing ”hundreds of truly European faces” among them. He went so far as to declare that it was utterly wrong to call them savages, ”for a more civilized people does not exist under the sun.” He did not stay with them long enough to discover that they were morally not far above the other South Sea Islanders.
WERE THE TONGANS CIVILIZED?
Mariner, who lived among the Tongans four years, and whose adventures and observations were afterward recorded by Martin, gives information which indicates that Cook was wrong when he said that a more civilized people does not exist under the sun. ”Theft, revenge, rape and murder,” Mariner attests (II., 140), ”under many circ.u.mstances are not held to be crimes.” It is considered the duty of married women to remain true to their husbands and this, Mariner thinks, is generally done. Unmarried women ”may bestow their favors upon whomsoever they please, without any opprobrium” (165). Divorced women, like the unmarried, may admit temporary lovers without the least reproach or secresy.
”When a woman is taken prisoner (in war) she generally has to submit; but this is a thing of course, and considered neither an outrage nor dishonor; the only dishonor being to be a prisoner and consequently a sort of servant to the conqueror. Rape, though always considered an outrage, is not looked upon as a crime unless the woman be of such rank as to claim respect from the perpetrator” (166).
Many of their expressions, when angry, are
”too indelicate to mention.” ”Conversation is often intermingled with allusions, even when women are present, which could not be allowed in any decent society in England.”
Two-thirds of the women
”are married and are soon divorced, and are married again perhaps three, four, or five times in their lives.” ”No man is understood to be bound to conjugal fidelity; it is no reproach to him to intermix his amours.” ”Neither have they any word expressive of chast.i.ty except _nofo mow_, remaining fixed or faithful, and which in this sense is only applied to a married woman to signify her fidelity to her husband.”
Even the married women of the lower cla.s.ses had to yield to the wishes of the chiefs, who did not hesitate to shoot a resisting husband.
(Waitz-Gerland, VI., 184.)
While these details show that Captain Cook overrated the civilization of the Tongans, there are other facts indicating that they were in some respects superior to other Polynesians, at any rate. The women are capable of blus.h.i.+ng, and they are reproached if they change their lovers too often. They seem to have a dawning sense of the value of chast.i.ty and of woman's claims to consideration. In Mariner's description (I., 130) of a chief's wedding occurs this sentence:
”The dancing being over, one of the old matabooles (n.o.bles) addressed the company, making a moral discourse on the subject of chast.i.ty--advising the young men to respect, in all cases, the wives of their neighbors, and never to take liberties even with an unmarried woman against her free consent.”