Chapter 46

It is now his turn to be perverse. Revenge is in his mind and mien. All his looks and gestures indicate contempt and malice, and he keeps turning his back to her. She cannot endure this long; his scorn overcomes her pride, and when he changes his attitude and once more begins to entreat, she at last allows him to seize her and they dance wildly. When finally the company separates for the evening meal, one may hear the word _tóro_ whispered. It means "cane," and indicates a nocturnal rendezvous in the cane-field, where lovers are safe from observation. They find each other by imitating the owl's sound, which excites no suspicion.

When they have met, the girl says: "You know that my parents hate you; nothing remains but _awenga_." Awenga means flight; three nights later they elope in a canoe to some small island, where they remain for a few weeks till the excitement over their disappearance has subsided in the village and their parents are ready to pardon them.

TWO SAMOAH LOVE-STORIES

Turner devotes six pages (98-104) to two Samoan love-stories. One of them illustrates the devotion of a wife and her husband's ingratitude and faithlessness, as the following summary will show:

There was a youth called Siati, noted for his singing. A serenading god came along, threw down a challenge, and promised him his fair daughter if he was the better singer. They sang and Siati beat the god. Then he rode on a shark to the god's home and the shark told him to go to the bathing-place, where he would find the god's daughters. The girls had just left the place when Siati arrived, but one of them had forgotten her comb and came back to get it. "Siati," said she, "however have you come here?" "I've come to seek the song-god and get his daughter to wife." "My father," said she, "is more of a god than man--eat nothing he hands you, never sit on a high seat lest death should follow, and now let us unite."

The god did not like his son-in-law and tried various ways to destroy him, but his wife Puapae always helped him out of the scrape, one time even making him cut her into two and throw her into the sea to be eaten by a fish and find a ring the god had lost and asked him to get. She was afterward cast ashore with the ring; but Siati had not even kept awake, and she scolded him for it. To save his life, she subsequently performed several other miracles, in one of which her father and sister were drowned in the sea. Then she said to Siati: "My father and sister are dead, and all on account of my love to you; you may go now and visit your family and friends while I remain here, but see that you do not behave unseemly." He went, visited his friends, and forgot Puapae. He tried to marry again, but Puapae came and stood on the other side. The chief called out, "Which is your wife, Siati?" "The one on the right side." Puapae then broke silence with, "Ah, Siati, you have forgotten all I did for you;" and off she went. Siati remembered it all, darted after her crying, and then fell down dead.

Apart from the amusing "suddenness" of the proposal and the marriage, this tale is of interest as indicating that among the lower races woman has--as many observations indicate--a greater capacity for conjugal attachment than man.

The courtship scene cited above indicates an instinctive knowledge of the strategic value of coyness and feigned displeasure. The following story, which I condense from the versified form in which Turner gives it, would seem to be a sort of masculine warning to women against the danger and folly of excessive coyness, so inconvenient to the men:

Once there were two sisters, Sinaleuuna and Sinaeteva, who wished they had a brother. Their wish was gratified; a boy was born to their parents, but they brought him up apart, and the sisters never saw him till one day, when he had grown up, he was sent to them with some food. The girls were struck with his beauty.

Afterwards they sat down and filled into a bamboo bottle the liquid shadow of their brother. A report had come to them of Sina, a Fijian girl who was so beautiful that all the swells were running after her. Hearing this, and being anxious to get a wife for their brother, they dressed up and went to Fiji, intending to tell Sina about their brother. But Sina was haughty; she slighted the sisters and treated them shamefully. She had heard of the beauty of the young man, whose name was Maluafiti ("Shade of Fiji"), and longed for his coming, but did not know that these were his sisters.

The slighted girls got angry and went to the water when Sina was taking her bath. From the bottle they threw out on the water the shadow of their brother. Sina looked at the shadow and was struck with its beauty. "That is my husband," she said, "wherever I can find him." She called out to the villagers for all the handsome young men to come and find out of whom the figure in the water was the image. But the shadow was more beautiful than any of these young men and it wheeled round and round in the water whenever Maluafiti, in his own land, turned about. All this time the sisters were weeping and exclaiming:

"Oh, Maluafiti! rise up, it is day; Your shadow prolongs our ill-treatment. Maluafiti, come and talk with her face to face, Instead of that image in the water."

Sina had listened, and now she knew it was the shadow of Maluafiti. "These are his sisters too," she thought, "and I have been ill-using them; forgive me, I've done wrong," But the ladies were angry still. Maluafiti came in his canoe to court Lady Sina, and also to fetch his sisters. When they told him of their treatment he flew into an implacable rage. Sina longed to get him; he was her heart's desire and long she had waited for him. But Maluafiti frowned and would return to his island, and off he went with his sisters. Sina cried and screamed, and determined to follow swimming. The sisters pleaded to save and to bring her, but Maluafiti relented not and Sina died in the ocean.

PERSONAL CHARMS OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS

"Falling in love" with a person of the other sex on the mere report of his or her beauty is a very familiar motive in the literature of Oriental and mediaeval nations in particular. It is, therefore, interesting to find such a motive in the Samoan story just cited. In my view, as previously explained, beauty, among the lower races, means any kind of attractiveness, sensual more frequently than esthetic. The South Sea Islanders have been credited with considerable personal charms, although it is now conceded that the early voyagers (to whom, after an absence from shore of several months, almost any female must have seemed a Helen) greatly exaggerated their beauty.

Captain Cook kept a level head. He found Tongan women less distinguished from the men by their features than by their forms, while in the case of Hawaiians even the figures were remarkably similar (II., 144, 246). In Tahitian women he saw "all those delicate characteristics which distinguish them from the men in other countries." The Hawaiians, though far from being ugly, are "neither remarkable for a beautiful shape, nor for striking features" (246).

The indolent, open-air, amphibious life led by the South Sea Islanders was favorable to the development of fine bodies. Cook saw among the Tongans "some absolutely perfect models of the human figure." But fine feathers do not make fine birds. The nobler phases of love are not inspired by fine figures so much as by beautiful and refined faces. Polynesian and Melanesian features are usually coarse and sensual. Hugo Zoller says that "the most beautiful Samoan woman would stand comparison at best with a pretty German peasant girl;" and from my own observations at Honolulu, and a study of many photographs, I conclude that what he says applies to the Pacific Islanders in general. Edward Reeves, in his recent volume on _Brown Men and Women_ (17-22), speaks of "that fraud--the beautiful brown woman." He found her a "dream of beauty and refinement" only in the eyes of poets and romancers; in reality they were malodorous and vulgar. "All South Sea Island women are very much the same."

"To compare the prettiest Tongan, Samoan, Tahitian, or even Rotuman, to the plainest and most simply educated Irish, French, or Colonial girl that has been decently brought up is an insult to one's intelligence."

Wilkes (II., 22) hesitated to speak of the Tahitian females because he could not discover their much-vaunted beauty:

"I did not see among them a single woman whom I could call handsome. They have, indeed, a soft sleepiness about the eyes, which may be fascinating to some, but I should rather ascribe the celebrity their charms have obtained among navigators to their cheerfulness and gaiety. Their figures are bad, and the greater part of them are parrot-toed."

TAHITIANS AND THEIR WHITE VISITORS

Tongan girls are referred to in Reeves's book as "bundles of blubber." It is not necessary to refer once more to the fact that "blubber" is the criterion and ideal of "beauty" among the Pacific Islanders, as among barbarians in general. Consequently their love cannot have been ennobled by any of the refined, esthetic, intellectual, and moral qualities which are embodied in a refined face and a daintily modelled figure.

Coarsest of all the Polynesians were the Tahitians; yet even here efforts have been made[186] to convey the impression that they owed their licentious practices to the influence of white visitors. The grain of truth in this assertion lies in the undoubted fact that the whites, with their rum and trinkets and diseases, aggravated the evil; but their contribution was but a drop in the ocean of iniquity which existed ages before these islands were discovered by whites. Tahitian traditions trace their vilest practices back to the earliest times known. (Ellis, I., 183.) The first European navigators found the same vices which later visitors deplored. Bougainville, who tarried at Tahiti in 1767, called the island Nouvelle Cythère, on account of the general immorality of the natives. Cook, when he visited the island in the following year, declined to make his journal "the place for exhibiting a view of licentious manners which could only serve to disgust" his readers (212). Hawkesworth relates (II., 206) that the Tahitians offered sisters and daughters to strangers, while breaches of conjugal fidelity are punished only by a few hard words or a slight beating:

"Among other diversions there is a dance called Timorodee, which is performed by young girls, whenever eight or ten of them can be collected together, consisting of motions and gestures beyond imagination wanton, in the practice of which they are brought up from their earliest childhood, accompanied by words which, if it were possible, would more explicitly convey the same ideas." "But there is a scale in dissolute sensuality, which these people have ascended, wholly unknown to every other nation whose manners have been recorded from the beginning of the world to the present hour, and which no imagination could possibly conceive."

This is the testimony of the earliest explorers who saw the natives before whites could have possibly corrupted them.[187] The later missionaries found no change for the better. Captain Cook already referred to the Areois who made a business of depravity (220). "So agreeable," he wrote,

"is this licentious plan of life to their disposition, that the most beautiful of both sexes thus commonly spend their youthful days, habituated to the practice of enormities which would disgrace the most savage tribes."

Ellis, who lived several years on this island, declares that they were noted for their humor and their jests, but the jests

"were in general low and immoral to a disgusting degree.... Awfully dark, indeed, was their moral character, and notwithstanding the apparent mildness of their disposition, and the cheerful vivacity of their conversation, no portion of the human race was ever, perhaps, sunk lower in brutal licentiousness and moral degradation than this isolated people" (87).

He also describes the Areois (I., 185-89) as "privileged libertines," who travelled from place to place giving improper dances and exhibitions, "addicted to every kind of licentiousness," and "spreading a moral contagion throughout society," Yet they were "held in the greatest respect" by all classes of the population. They had their own gods, who were "monsters in vice," and "patronized every evil practice perpetrated during such seasons of public festivity."

Did the white sailors also give the Tahitians their idea of Tahitian dances, and professional Areois, and corrupt gods? Did they teach them customs which Hawkesworth, himself a sailor, and accustomed to scenes of low life, said "no imagination could possibly conceive?" Did the European whites teach these natives to regard men as _ra_ (sacred) and women as _noa_ (common)? Did they teach them all those other customs and atrocities which the following paragraphs reveal?

HEARTLESS TREATMENT OF WOMEN

It can be shown that quite apart from their sensuality, the Tahitians were too coarse and selfish to be able to entertain any of those refined sentiments of love which the sentimentalists would have us believe prevailed before the advent of the white man.

Love is often compared to a flower; but love cannot, like a flower, grow on a dunghill. It requires a pure, chaste soul, and it requires the fostering sunshine of sympathy and adoration. To a Tahitian a woman was merely a toy to amuse him. He liked her as he liked his food and drink, or his cool plunge into the waves, for the reason that she pleased his senses. He could not feel sentimental love for her, since, far from adoring her, he did not even respect or well-treat her. Ellis (I., 109) relates that

"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 gods; 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 coarseness 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 principal 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 assiduous 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 massacre him and his crew and take the two ships--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 assault.[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 circumstances 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 chastity 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 classes 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 blushing, and they are reproached if they change their lovers too often. They seem to have a dawning sense of the value of chastity and of woman's claims to consideration. In Mariner's description (I., 130) of a chief's wedding occurs this sentence: