The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume 2 (of 3)

§ 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."⁸⁸⁸ 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."⁸⁸⁹

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."⁸⁹⁰ 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."⁸⁹¹ 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."⁸⁹² 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."⁸⁹³ 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.⁸⁹⁴ 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.⁸⁹⁵ 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.⁸⁹⁶ 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,⁸⁹⁷ or by smearing themselves with a cosmetic in which the yellow of the turmeric root predominated.⁸⁹⁸

§ 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.⁸⁹⁹ 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,⁹⁰⁰ 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.⁹⁰¹ 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.⁹⁰²

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.⁹⁰³ 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.⁹⁰⁴ 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.⁹⁰⁵

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.⁹⁰⁶

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.⁹⁰⁷ Sometimes the stones are described as enormous blocks of rock,⁹⁰⁸ some of which would require ten or twelve men to carry or roll them.⁹⁰⁹ Water-worn boulders, washed down from the mountains in the bed of torrents, were especially chosen for the purpose.⁹¹⁰

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).⁹¹¹

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.⁹¹² 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.⁹¹³

§ 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."⁹¹⁴ 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."⁹¹⁵ 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."⁹¹⁶ According to Radiguet, the right of having more husbands than one was not general and hardly belonged to any but chieftainesses,⁹¹⁷ but this limitation is denied by a good authority.⁹¹⁸ 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."⁹¹⁹

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.⁹²⁰

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.⁹²¹

§ 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.⁹²²

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."⁹²³ 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."⁹²⁴

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.⁹²⁵ 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.⁹²⁶

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.⁹²⁷ 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.⁹²⁸

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.⁹²⁹ Thus these wandering minstrels and mountebanks would seem to have corresponded to the Areois of the Society Islands.⁹³⁰ 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.⁹³¹

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.⁹³²