The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead Volume Ii Part 26

Wilson, _Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean_, pp.

343 _sqq._; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and Travels_, i. 523 (as to Taaroa); J. A. Moerenhout, _Voyages aux iles du Grand Ocean_, i. 416 _sqq._, 436 _sqq._, 442 _sq._ As to Taaoroa and his counterparts in Polynesian mythology, see H.

Hale, _United States Exploring Expedition, Ethnography and Philology_, p. 22; E. Tregear, _Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary_, pp. 463 _sq._, _s.v._ "Tangaroa."

[27] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 167 _sq._

Oro is sometimes described as the war-G.o.d.[28] The great seat of his wors.h.i.+p was at Opoa in the island of Raiatea: his princ.i.p.al image was wors.h.i.+pped there "with the most b.l.o.o.d.y and detestable rites"; and thither human victims, ready slain, were sent from every sh.o.r.e to be offered on his altar.[29] Sometimes, instead of the bodies of the slain, only their jaw-bones were sent to decorate the temple of Oro at Opoa; long strings of these relics might be seen hanging about the sacred edifice.[30] In the small island of Tahaa, off Raiatea, there was a temple (_marae_) dedicated to Oro and his two daughters. It belonged to the king and "was upheld for the convenience of finding a pretext to get rid, from time to time, of obnoxious persons, of both s.e.xes; the men slain by a.s.sa.s.sination, or in war, being presented to the male idol, and the women to his female progeny, who were held to be as cruelly delighted with blood as their parent. But the human sacrifices brought hither were not allowed to remain and infect the atmosphere. When they had lain upon the altar till they became offensive, the carcases were transported to Oro's metropolitan temple at Opoa, in Raiatea, which was the common Golgotha of his victims."[31]

[28] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 114, 529.

[29] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 529.

[30] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ ii. 14. In a long house in the southern part of Tahiti, Captain Cook saw, at one end of it, a semicircular board, from which hung fifteen human jaw-bones, apparently fresh; not one of them wanted a tooth. He was told that they "had been carried away as trophies, the people here carrying away the jaw-bones of their enemies, as the Indians of North America do the scalps." See J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 152, 160.

[31] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 549.

Oro was said to have inst.i.tuted the notorious Society of the Areois, a licentious fraternity of strolling players and mountebanks, who roamed about in troupes from island to island, everywhere entertaining the populace by their shows, which comprised recitations, songs, dramatic performances, wrestling matches, and especially dances, which were often of a lascivious character.[32] These exhibitions, which were witnessed by crowds and appear to have been the most popular amus.e.m.e.nt of the islanders, were given in large, substantial, sometimes highly ornamented, houses, which were erected chiefly for the purpose of lodging these itinerant performers, and providing them with suitable places for their performances.[33] The first missionaries describe how, in a long native house where they lodged for the night, they saw the Areois men and women dancing and singing till near midnight: so great were their numbers that they made the house appear like a village.[34]

Sometimes, apparently, the performances took place in front of the house, the musicians, singers, and reciters occupying a sort of stage, while the actors or dancers performed on a place marked out for them on the ground or on the floor.[35] The subject of their songs or recitations was often a legend of the G.o.ds, or of some distinguished member of the Society, which was chanted or recited by the performers in chorus seated in a circle on the ground, while the leader stood in the centre and introduced the recitation with a sort of prologue, accompanied by antic gestures and att.i.tudes.[36] In these recitals the tales often turned on romantic and diverting episodes in the lives of ancestors or of deities. "Many of these were very long, and regularly composed, so as to be repeated verbatim, or with such ill.u.s.trations only as the wit or fancy of the narrator might have the skill to introduce.

Their captain on public occasions, was placed cross-legged on a stool seven feet high, with a fan in his hand, in the midst of the circle of laughing or admiring auditors, whom he delighted with his drollery, or transported with his grimaces, being, in fact, the merry-andrew of the corps, who, like a wise fool, well knew how to turn his folly to the best account."[37]

[32] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 193-195; J. R. Forster, _Observations made during a Voyage round the World_, pp.

411-414; G. Forster, _Voyage round the World_, ii. 128-135; J.

Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 56, 57, 59, 65 _sq._, 153, 154, 174, 194 _sq._, 209, 331, 335; J. Turnbull, _Voyage round the World_ (London, 1813), p. 364; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i.

326-328; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 229-247; Waitz-Gerland, _Anthropologie_, vi. 363-369.

[33] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 236 _sq._

[34] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 209.

[35] J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ ii. 133 _sq._

[36] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 235.

[37] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 327 _sq._

The Society of the Areois was wealthy and highly esteemed; members were drawn from all social ranks and greatly prided themselves on belonging to it.[38] Indeed, they were regarded as a sort of superhuman beings, closely allied to the G.o.ds, and were treated with a corresponding degree of veneration by many of the vulgar and ignorant.[39] They were divided into seven ranks or cla.s.ses, the members of which were distinguished from each other by their tattoo marks; the greater the amount of the tattooing, the higher the rank of the person.[40] Admission to the Society was attended by a variety of ceremonies; a protracted noviciate followed, and it was only by progressive advancement that any were promoted to the higher dignities. It was imagined that those who became Areois were prompted or inspired by the G.o.ds to take this step. A candidate for admission, therefore, repaired to one of the public exhibitions in that apparent state of frenzy which is commonly supposed to indicate divine inspiration. His face was dyed scarlet; his hair was perfumed and adorned with flowers, and he wore a girdle of yellow plantain leaves. Thus arrayed, he rushed through the crowd a.s.sembled round the house in which the actors or dancers were performing, and, leaping into the circle, joined with seeming frantic wildness in the dance or pantomime. If the Society approved of him, they appointed him to wait as a servant on the princ.i.p.al Areois, and after a period of probation he might be inducted into the Society as a full-fledged member. At his induction, which took place in a great a.s.sembly of the body, the candidate received a new name, by which he was thenceforth known in the Society.[41] When a member was advanced from a lower to a higher grade, the ceremony was performed at a public festival which all the members of the Society in the island were expected to attend. The candidate was then taken to a temple, where he was solemnly anointed with fragrant oil on the forehead, and offered a pig to the G.o.d.[42]

[38] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 239, 245; G. Forster, _op. cit._ ii. 130; J. R. Forster, _op. cit._ pp. 411 _sq._

[39] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 239, 244; J. Turnbull, _op. cit._ p. 364; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 492.

[40] G. Forster, _op. cit._ ii. 128 _sq._; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 238; J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 491.

[41] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 239 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _op.

cit._ i. 491 _sqq._

[42] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 241 _sq._; J. A. Moerenhout, _op.

cit._ i. 493 _sq._

When a member of the Society died his body was conveyed by the Areois to the grand temple, where the bones of the kings were deposited. There the priest of Oro, standing over the corpse, offered a long prayer to his G.o.d. This prayer, and the ceremonies accompanying it, were designed to divest the body of all the sacred and mysterious influence which the deceased was thought to have received from the G.o.d at the moment when, in the presence of the idol, the perfumed oil had been sprinkled on him, and he had been raised to the order or rank in which he died. By this act they supposed that the sacred influence was restored to Oro, by whom it had been imparted. The body was then buried, like that of a common man, within the precincts of the temple, in which the mortal remains of chiefs were interred.[43] But if for any reason the corpse were buried in unconsecrated ground, the ghost would appear to a survivor next day and remonstrate with him, saying, "You have buried me in common earth, and so long as I lie there, I cannot go to heaven. You must bury me with ceremonies, and in holy ground." After that the corpse was disinterred, and having been doubled up by tying the arms to the shoulders and the knees to the trunk, it was buried in a sitting posture in a hole so shallow that the earth barely covered the head. This was esteemed the most honourable form of sepulture, and was princ.i.p.ally confined to personages of high rank.[44]

[43] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 244 _sq._

[44] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 273 _sq._

The Areoi Society comprised women as well as men,[45] but the accounts given of the proportion of the s.e.xes and their relations to each other are conflicting. According to one account, the male members outnumbered the women as five to one.[46] The first missionaries reported that the Areois were said to have each two or three wives, whom they exchanged with each other.[47] According to Cook, every woman was common to every man[48]; and Turnbull affirmed that the community of women was the very principle of their union.[49] On the other hand, the naturalist George Forster, who accompanied Captain Cook, observes: "We have been told a wanton tale of promiscuous embraces, where every woman is common to every man: but when we enquired for a confirmation of this story from the natives, we were soon convinced that it must, like many others, be considered as the groundless invention of a traveller's gay fancy."[50]

Again, Ellis observes that, "although addicted to every kind of licentiousness themselves, each Areoi had his own wife, who was also a member of the Society; and so jealous were they in this respect, that improper conduct towards the wife of one of their own number, was sometimes punished with death."[51] Yet the same writer speaks of "the mysteries of iniquity, and acts of more than b.e.s.t.i.a.l degradation" to which the Areois were at times addicted; and he says that "in some of their meetings, they appear to have placed their invention on the rack, to discover the worst pollutions of which it was possible for man to be guilty, and to have striven to outdo each other in the most revolting practices."[52]

[45] G. Forster, _op. cit._ ii. 128.

[46] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 326.

[47] J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p. 174.

[48] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 193 _sq._

[49] J. Turnbull, _Voyage round the World_, p. 364.

[50] G. Forster, _op. cit._ ii. 132.

[51] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 239.

[52] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 243.

It was a rule of the Society that no member should have any children; hence the first injunction given to a new member was to murder his offspring. Any infant that might afterwards be born to him was strangled at birth.[53] If a woman spared her child and could induce a man to father it, "both the man and the woman, being deemed by this act to have appropriated each other, are ejected from the community, and forfeit all claim to the privileges and pleasures of Arreoy for the future; the woman from that time being distinguished by the term _whannow-now_, 'bearer of children,' which is here a term of reproach."[54] The pretext alleged by the Areois for this cruel practice was that, on the inst.i.tution of the Society by the G.o.d Oro, the first two members, Orotetefa and Urutetefa, brothers of the G.o.d, had been celibate and childless, and that therefore the members of the Society were bound to imitate them by being also without offspring.[55]

[53] J. Cook, _Voyages_, i. 194; J. R. Forster, _Observations_, pp. 413 _sq._; G. Forster, _Voyage_, ii. 129 _sq._; J. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 154 _sq._, 174, 194 _sq._; W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 230 _sq._, 233, 240. Moerenhout says that when a chief was an Areoi, his first-born son was spared, but all the rest were sacrificed; but immediately afterwards he adds, with apparent inconsistency, that "the first (by which he seems to mean the princ.i.p.al) Areois only killed their first sons and all their daughters; the other male infants were spared." See Moerenhout, _op. cit._ i. 495, 496. These statements, so far as I have observed, are not confirmed by other writers.

[54] J. Cook, i. 194.

[55] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 230 _sq._, 232 _sq._

In the constant repet.i.tion of their often obscene exhibitions the Areois pa.s.sed their lives, sailing from island to island or strolling from one chief's house to that of another, where they renewed the same round of dances, wrestlings, and pantomimic performances.[56] But the labour and drudgery of dancing and performing for the amus.e.m.e.nt of the spectators devolved chiefly on the lowest members of the Society, who were the princ.i.p.al actors in all their shows, while the higher orders, though they plastered themselves with charcoal and stained themselves scarlet like their humbler brethren, were generally careful not to contribute to the public hilarity by any exhausting efforts of their own. Thus they led a life of dissipation and luxurious indolence.[57]

[56] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 236, 237.

[57] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 238, 241.

They seem to have moved about in great troupes. As many as seventy canoes, with more than seven hundred of these vagabonds on board, have been seen steering from island to island.[58] The approach of such a fleet to the sh.o.r.e with drums beating, flutes playing, and streamers floating on the wind, was a picturesque sight, and as the canoes neared the land the dancers might be seen jigging it on stages erected on board, while the voices of the singers mingled with the roll of the drums, the shrill music of the flutes, and the roar of the surf on the beach in a confused but not unmelodious babel of sound.[59]

[58] J. R. Forster, _Observations_, p. 412; G. Forster, _Voyage_, ii. 128.

[59] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 236 _sq._ Compare J. A. Moerenhout, _op. cit._ ii. 132 _sq._ According to the latter writer there were traditions of as many as a hundred and fifty canoes sailing at once, each one seldom containing less than thirty or forty, and sometimes a hundred persons.

On landing in an island their first business was to take a small sucking-pig to the temple and present it to the G.o.d as a thank-offering to him for having brought them safe to sh.o.r.e. This, we are told, was the only sacrifice ever offered in token of grat.i.tude by any of the South Sea Islanders to their imaginary divinities.[60] While they were everywhere welcomed by the vulgar for the merriment they carried with them, and were everywhere countenanced and liberally entertained by the kings and chiefs, who found them convenient tools of fraud and oppression, they were not received with equal enthusiasm by the farmers, who had to furnish them with provisions, and who durst not refuse them anything, however unreasonable and extortionate their demands. For the Areois lived on the fat of the land. When they alighted, like a swarm of locusts, on a rich district, they would send out their henchmen to scour the neighbourhood and plunder the miserable inhabitants; and when they moved on to their next halting-place, the gardens which they left behind them often presented a scene of desolation and ruin.[61] Such havoc, indeed, did they spread by their feastings and carousings on even a short visit of a few days, that in some parts of Tahiti the natives were compelled to abandon the fertile lowlands and retreat up the mountains, submitting to the trouble of clambering up almost inaccessible slopes and cultivating a less fruitful soil rather than expose much of the produce of their labour to the ravages of these privileged robbers.[62]

[60] D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 326 _sq._

[61] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ i. 237 _sq._; D. Tyerman and G.

Bennet, _op. cit._ i. 326-328. Compare J. Wilson, _op. cit._ p.