the papuans and polynesians.
the papuans—their physical and moral characteristics—their artistic tastes—their dwellings—their primitive political institutions—their weapons and mode of fighting—the polynesians—their manners and customs when first visited by europeans—tattooing—the tapa cloth—their canoes—swimming feats—aristocratic forms of government—the tabu—religion—superstitious observances—human sacrifices—infanticide—low condition of the coral islanders.
two races of man, widely differing from each other in character, social condition, and physical conformation—the papuans and the polynesians—are spread over the islands of the pacific and the archipelagoes of the coral sea. the papuans who occupy the area comprising new guinea, new ireland, new britannia, new caledonia, the new hebrides, the solomon group, loyalty, and many other islands of minor importance, are in stature equal to if not surpassing the average european size. their legs are long and thin, and their hands and feet greater than those of the malays. the face is somewhat elongated, the forehead flat, the brows very prominent, the eyes sufficiently large and well formed, not too deeply set,277 nor with the overhanging brow of the australians; the nose large, slightly aquiline, and broad at the base; the mouth large with thick and pouting lips. the colour of the skin is commonly of a deep black-brown or black, sometimes approaching the coal-black of the genuine negro races.
the growth of the hair is very peculiar, and at first sight might be confounded with the wool of the negro. its distribution is most easily seen on the body and limbs, when it may be observed to grow in small tufts or pencils, separated one from the other, and giving a blotchy or woolly aspect to the skin. the hair of the head doubtless grows in the same way, but here the tufts are close together, and each forms a separate small curl, very stiff, and when suffered to grow long hangs down in a narrow pipe-like ringlet. the fashion of dressing the hair varies in different localities, but generally the greatest care is bestowed upon it. the face of the papuans has upon the whole a more european expression than that of the malays, and the prominent nose, the strongly marked eyebrows, and the character of the hair enable one at once to distinguish these two races from each other.
the difference in their moral characteristics is no less remarkable.
the papuan is impulsive and demonstrative in his language and actions. his passions and emotions express themselves in screaming and laughing, in howling and jumping. the women and children take part in every conversation, and show no fear at the sight of strangers and europeans. the malay is timid, cold, quiet; the papuan bold, impetuous, and noisy. the former is serious, and seldom laughs; the latter is jovial, and loves a joke: the one hides his emotions, the other shows them openly.
it is difficult to form an opinion of the intelligence of the papuans, but mr. wallace is inclined to place it on a somewhat higher level than that of the malays, although the latter, influenced for centuries by the immigration and intercourse with hindoos, chinese, and arabs, have made some progress in civilisation, while the former, communicating but little with the rest of the world, are still plunged in barbarism. the papuan has much more vital energy, which certainly would materially aid his intellectual development were he placed in more278 favourable circumstances. he combines a remarkable taste and skill in the ornamenting of his furniture with an utter disregard of all order and convenience in his household arrangements. he has no chair or bench to sit upon, does not know the use of a brush, and his dress, such as it is, consists of dirty bark or rags. he never takes the trouble to clear the path which he daily treads, of overhanging branches or prickly thorns. in many parts his nourishment consists almost entirely of roots and vegetables; fish and game being only occasional luxuries; and in consequence both of his coarse food and his filthy habits, he is very liable to various cutaneous diseases. the children, particularly, have often a miserable look, and are covered over their whole body with eruptions and sores. if these people are not savages, where are we to look for them? and yet these same savages have a decided taste for the fine arts, and employ their leisure hours in executing ornamental works, the neatness and elegance of which would often do honour to our schools of design.
they cover the outside of their houses with rude but characteristic figures, and their canoes, and other implements and furniture are decorated with elaborate carvings in various patterns; a custom very seldom met with among the malayan tribes.
but the most striking instance of papuan industry, and the one which seems most at variance with their utter barbarism in almost every other respect, is shown in the construction of the immense houses in new guinea which strike the stranger with astonishment. they are upwards of 300 feet long, about 30 feet in width, and 16 or 18 feet high in the centre, from which the roof slopes down on either hand to the floor; their inside looks just like a great tunnel. down each side are a row of cabins with walls of bamboo and neatly made doors. inside these cabins are low frames covered with mats, apparently bed-places, and overhead are shelves and pegs for bows and arrows, baskets, stone axes, and other utensils. these immense structures rest on a number of posts, like the ancient lacustrine habitations of switzerland, so that their floor is raised from the muddy ground about six feet. the roof, formed of an arched framework of bamboo, is covered with a perfectly waterproof thatch of sago-palm leaves. the centre of the house for about a279 third of its width is kept quite clear, forming a noble covered promenade, though rather dark, as the only light proceeds from the large doors at the end and the little side doors between the cabins.
most accounts describe the honesty of the papuans as superior to that of the polynesian race, and they seem to be less eagerly addicted to pilfering; they are, however, commonly much more hostile and ferocious, sometimes waging open warfare, sometimes having recourse to the grossest treachery. travellers mention them honourably for the treatment of their women. mr. jukes never saw a woman beaten or abused among the torres straits islanders, and in all the harder kinds of work the men appeared to take their fair share of labour. their care and affection for their children seemed always great. although wanting in the engaging liveliness and fascinating manners of some of the eastern polynesian nations, they are of a cheerful disposition, readily engaging in sports and amusements, and their curiosity is easily excited by anything interesting or uncommon. when bartering with europeans they show their good sense in preferring useful articles to mere ornaments.
the political institutions of the papuans are extremely primitive. we do not hear of any division into ranks or of any hereditary chieftainship or authority among them. they apparently live in small tribes, hostile the one to the other. they have never attained to any great skill in navigation. their canoes are commonly small, rudely fashioned, and unfit to encounter the swell of the open sea. their agriculture is very rude and they seem in no instance to cultivate rice or any other sort of grain. no genuine papuan nation has been known to have invented or practised the art of making any kind of cloth. their favourite weapons are the bow and arrow, in the use of which they are very expert, but they appear never to have acquired anything like discipline or skill in warfare, although apparently more constantly engaged in it than the polynesians.
of their mode of fighting, the following account of a skirmish witnessed by mr. jukes gives us a good idea. ‘the hostile parties approached each other at full speed to within about thirty or forty yards, when they both halted, sheltering280 themselves behind rocks and large stones; and there was a pretty brisk interchange of arrows. the sharp twanging or smacking of the bows, the rattling of bundles of arrows and the hurtling of arrows through the air, and their glancing from the rocks, was heard above the shouts and cries of the combatants. the fierce gestures, quick and active movements, and the animated attitudes of the black and naked warriors, ornamented, as many of them were, with glittering pearl shells or red flowers and yellow leaves hanging from their hair, and the crouching of the women, known by their petticoats, in the rear or skirts of the battle with fresh stores of ammunition, formed for a short time an interesting and exciting spectacle. after a minute or two’s skirmishing they all rushed together, hand to hand, and formed a confused mob. the shouting and noise was then redoubled, and there was a short clatter of long poles, sticks, or canoe paddles, which we could see waving above their heads, and we thought some of them were using their arrows as spears or daggers. still no execution seemed to be done, as we saw none of them down, and in a very short time the poles and paddles were all held erect, the women closed up, and the war of deeds seemed to end in one of words. the fight being done, both parties seemed very glad it was over. several of the combatants were slightly scarred with arrow marks, but in some cases had evidently had a very narrow escape. it seemed as if they had seen the arrow coming and avoided it by twisting the body as the australians avoid spears.’
as to the future prospects of the papuan race, there can hardly be a doubt that as soon as they come within the range of european emigration or dominion, their speedy extinction must be the result. their very qualities will seal their doom, for a warlike and energetic people will never quietly submit to the yoke of a foreign master, and must as surely disappear before the white man as the wolf or the tiger.
with the single and remarkable exception of the feejee islanders, who form a kind of intermediate race between the papuan and polynesian races, all the archipelagoes and islands of the tropical pacific, situated on the east and north of the above-mentioned groups, are inhabited by nations distinguished from the papuan stock by a yellow, olive-coloured, or brown skin; by smooth, generally black, hair; by a finer281 proportioned body, with well-rounded limbs and swelling muscles. the nations belonging to this yellow or polynesian race have in general attained a much higher degree of civilisation than the black hordes of the western islands; and though enormous distances intervene between them, the inhabitants of the large groups of the sandwich, society, navigators, and friendly islands, are more similar to each other than the various nations crowded together in the comparatively narrow space of our continent. their features are everywhere the same; they speak dialects of the same language, so nearly resembling each other that the people of tonga can freely converse with those of hawaii; and when first visited by european navigators they showed a surprising similarity in their customs, their religious observances, and their political institutions, as well as in the progress they had made in agriculture and the industrial arts.
not satisfied with the spontaneous bounty of nature, they forced the willing soil to yield them a variety of productions. the tahitians, besides multiplying the bread-fruit tree and the cocoa palm, chiefly cultivated the banana, the sweet potato, and the yam; while the roots of the taro formed the principal nourishment of the sandwich islanders, who by an admirable system of irrigation extended the plantations of this water-loving plant, even high up the hills, where it grew in artificial ponds. these served likewise as basins for the reception of mullets, which were taken when quite young out of the sea, and placed in reservoirs into which some sweet water was made to flow. they were then gradually accustomed to water less and less salt, and ultimately, after five or six weeks, transferred to the submerged taro plantations, where they grew to a large size, and acquired a delicious flavour.
the food of the common people in all these islands consisted entirely of vegetables: pork, and the flesh of dogs, which was particularly esteemed, being exclusively reserved for the use of the great. this taste seems strange, but as the dogs destined for the table were fed wholly upon bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, and other vegetables, their flesh was but little inferior to english lamb, and might well pass for a delicacy in a country where beef, mutton, and venison were unknown. the general drink was water or the milk of the cocoa-nut, but on festive occasions282 they prepared an intoxicating beverage called kava from the root of a species of pepper.
both men and women were dressed in tapa, a kind of white cloth, which was not woven, but made like paper, of the macerated fibres of the bark of the chinese mulberry and bread-fruit trees spread out and beaten together. the lower classes wore but a scanty covering of this material, while the nobles were amply attired in long and flowing garments, stained with various colours.
when even the rude australian shows some desire to decorate his ugly person by sticking a bone through his nostrils, or by bedaubing his filthy body with paint, we cannot wonder at the taste for ornament displayed by the more polished south sea islanders. elegant chaplets, of gaily-coloured feathers, adorned their raven hair, and flowers in the ears gratified at once the eye by their lively hues, and the smell by their delicious perfume.
the custom of tattooing so frequent among the malays, and even among the negroes and american indians, was nowhere so universally and so elaborately practised as among the south sea islanders. each group had its particular patterns, each rank was differently marked. the instrument used for this painful operation was a kind of comb, the teeth of which were struck just through the skin, after which the punctures were rubbed with a kind of paste made of soot and oil which left an indelible stain.
the industrial dexterity of this ingenious people appeared in the manufacture of many other articles besides the tapa. rushes, grass, the bark of trees, and fibrous leaves furnished the material for finer mats than any made in europe. the coarser kind of matting was employed for sleeping on in the night, or sitting on through the day; the finer sort was converted into garments in rainy weather, the tapa being soon penetrated by wet. they were also very expert in making basket and wicker work; their baskets were of a vast number of different patterns, many of them exceedingly neat, and the making of them was an art practised by everyone, both men and women. essentially maritime in their tastes, they excelled in the construction of their canoes, which were the more to be admired as an adze made of stone, a chisel or gouge283 made of bone, a rasp of coral, and the skin of a sting ray as a file and polisher, were the only tools which they possessed. with these rude implements they generally took up several days in felling a tree, which was then split into planks. the boards, having been very dexterously smoothed, were afterwards fitted to the boat with the same exactness that might be expected from an expert joiner.
to fasten them together, holes were bored with a piece of bone fixed into a stick for that purpose, and through these holes a kind of plaited cordage was passed, so as to hold the planks strongly together. the seams were caulked with dry rushes, and the whole outside of the vessel was painted over with a kind of gummy juice which supplied the place of pitch. considering the inferiority of their tools, the building of one of their large war canoes, which sometimes had the enormous length of 108 feet and could hold forty men, was undoubtedly a piece of workmanship not inferior to the huge vessels constructed in europe with the assistance of iron. generally two of these war canoes were lashed together, with two masts set up between them, and a high platform raised above, on which the warriors, armed with spears and slings, were stationed; the rowers sat below, ready to receive the wounded from above and to send reinforcements to take their place. single boats had an outrigger on one side, and only one mast in the middle; and in these frail constructions, they did not hesitate to sail far beyond the sight of land, shaping their course in the daytime by the sun, at night by the stars, to which they gave their particular names.
a fleet of war canoes with its curved figures, its waving pennants, and its men gracefully clothed in flowing garments, afforded a highly picturesque spectacle, which might give some idea of the vessels in which the argonauts sailed to colchis, or the homeric heroes embarked for the destruction of troy.
accustomed to bathe from infancy, the half-amphibious south sea islanders are admirable swimmers. captain cook was amazed at the natatorial expertness of the tahitians in a tremendously high surf, in which the best european swimmer would have been drowned, as the shore was covered with pebbles and large stones. whenever a huge wave broke near284 them they dived under it and rose again on the other side. the stern of an old canoe added much to their sport. this they took out before them, and swam as far as the outermost breach in the reef, through which the sea came pouring in; when two or three getting into it and turning the square end to the breaking waves, were driven in towards the shore with incredible rapidity, sometimes almost to the beach, but generally the wave broke over them before they got half-way, in which case they dived and rose to the other side with the canoe in their hands and swimming out with it again were again driven back.
on the border of the reef of the island of huaheini, ellis frequently saw more than a hundred persons of all ages play like dolphins in the rolling breakers, sometimes riding on the crest of a wave and nearly enveloped with foam, and then again disappearing under the billows, which rolled like mountains above them.
the dwellings of the south sea islanders were small huts built under the shade of bread-fruit trees or cocoa palms, and open at the sides, so as to allow a free entrance to the cooling breeze—a great enjoyment in a climate blessed with a perpetual spring. a strong thatch of palm leaves effectually kept out the rain, and the floor was covered with hay, over which they spread mats to sleep on, this being the chief use to which their simple constructions were devoted, for, unless it rained, they ate and performed all their work in the open air.
the form of government in the large polynesian groups was monarchical and aristocratic. when captain wallis first landed on tahiti, a queen reigned over the beautiful island, and when cook discovered the sandwich archipelago a succession of kings had long ruled over hawaii. the genealogy of the great nobles was traced back as far as the remotest periods of their legendary history, and in some islands the kings, as in the old times of greece, derived their origin in a direct line from the gods, so that religion lent its aid to secure their authority by the prestige of birth. their person was sacred, none of the lower classes was allowed to touch them, and he who should have ventured to cast his shadow over their path would have been punished with death. whenever the king or queen appeared in public, they were always carried on the shoulders of men, whose honourable office exonerated them from285 all other labour. in this manner they travelled full speed at the rate of more than five miles an hour. other carriers, with a considerable retinue, ran alongside for the relief of their tired comrade, and at each relay royalty never placed its foot upon the ground, but vaulted over the head of the exhausted carrier upon the shoulders of his successor, who instantly proceeded on his journey at a sharp trot.
in the friendly archipelago the tui tonga, a sacred personage descending in a direct line from one of the chief polynesian gods, enjoyed divine honours, which were paid him not only by his countrymen, but even by part of samoa and the feejee islands. the highest nobles were obliged to sit down when he passed; a mark of reverence which they themselves exacted from the meanest peasant.
an etiquette as severe and circumstantial as that which prescribes the courtly forms existing among the most civilised people of asia or europe, served to maintain the wide line of demarcation which separated the lords of the land from the common artisans and cultivators of the soil: and the strange superstition of the tabu, one of the most effectual instruments of government ever invented by man, still further secured the willing obedience of the people.
in general the tabu signified a prohibition. it interdicted the visiting of certain spots, the use of certain articles of food, the touching of certain objects, the use of certain words, the performance of certain actions, and he who, for instance, touched the dead body of a chieftain was subjected during several months to a tabu, and was then not allowed to carry his victuals to his mouth with his own hands. when hungry and no one near at hand to feed him, he was obliged to creep on all fours and seize his victuals with his lips.
the tabu spread its influence over every occurrence of life. it was political or religious, general or individual, of limited duration or perpetual. sometimes it proceeded from the whim of a chieftain, or the caprice of a priest; sometimes it appeared as a measure of general utility, and then again as a protection for individual property; sometimes it extended over a whole people, and in other cases was limited to a single individual. its yoke lay particularly heavy on the women, whom it deprived of many enjoyments, and subjected to many irksome restrictions.286 but, though frequently tyrannical and oppressive, it often performed the salutary part of our laws and police regulations, with this difference, however, in its favour: that whereas many of us are, more or less, inclined to infringe the law, no polynesian would have ventured to disobey the tabu, being perfectly convinced that this crime would immediately entail upon him the signal vengeance of his gods. every chieftain had the right to subject his inferiors to a tabu, and was in a like manner obliged to submit to the interdictions pronounced by his superior. if by some chance he had infringed a tabu, he could only be exonerated by a chieftain of higher rank. thus the tabu placed an enormous power in the hands of the privileged castes, and secured by the chains of superstition the eternal slavery of the people.
as among the ancient greeks an invisible world of gods ruled over the visible phenomena of nature, thus also the fertile fancy of the polynesians peopled earth and heaven, the ocean and the mountains with a mighty host of spirits. they recognized their presence in the rising sun, the mild moonlight, the howling storm, the roaring breaker, and the soft evening breeze. the peak of the mountain, the fleecy vapours hanging on its side, the foaming waterfall, and above all the volcano and the earthquake, were all palpable objects, connected with a presiding divinity. most of these gods were vindictive, proud, irascible beings, ever ready to do mischief in a material or immaterial form; and even the spirits of deceased relations were feared as malignant demons. thus, here as elsewhere, superstition added its fantastical terrors to the real evils of existence.
the polynesian pantheon, a strange mixture of poetry and absurdity, was as richly peopled as that of the ancient greeks or scandinavians. tangaloa was the creator of their little world, which, according to the tonga account, he fished up from the sea. tahiti was the first part that appeared. just as its rock showed above water, the line broke. however, the rock in which the hook stuck could still be seen on the island of hoonga, and the family of tuitonga were in possession of the hook. in tahiti and samoa the workman was the same, but the work different. the tahitian tangaloa formed the ocean from the sweat of his brow—so hard did he work in making the land.
287 the samoan sent down his daughter toli in the shape of a snipe to survey the world below. as she saw nothing but sea, her father rolled down a stone, which became one island, and another which became a second, and so on. the first growth of such islands was wild vine. they were pulled out of the ground and heaped up to rot, so that worms were produced. out of these worms grew men and women.
oro, the god of war, was the mighty protector of tahiti. his father, taaroa, was the son of night, for here also, as among the greeks, all originally proceeded from darkness.
hiro, the polynesian neptune, likewise played a considerable part in legendary lore. once the monsters of the deep had lulled him with a profound sleep while the god of winds raised a terrible storm to destroy a vessel in which his friends were embarked. their destruction seemed inevitable, but a good spirit penetrated into the sea-grot where the god was dozing, awoke him from his slumbers, and told him of the danger his followers were in. instantly he rose to the surface, where his presence scared away the weaker storm-god, and his friends were saved.
in the sandwich islands, the chief divinities resided in the burning craters of mauna loa, for no phenomenon of nature was equal in terrific grandeur to these explosions of subterranean fire, and the mysterious powers which caused them were necessarily prominent in power. there dwelt pele the supreme goddess of fire, with a whole train of subordinate deities, such as kamoho ‘the king of steam,’ teoahitamatana ‘the fire-spitting son of war,’ hiatawawahilani ‘the sky-rending cloud-compeller.’ the roar of the volcano was the music to which their deities danced, their delight was to swim in the waves of the fiery sea. never did these dreadful beings leave their abodes for a beneficial purpose, but only to receive offerings or to wreak vengeance: the quaking of the earth, the outpouring lava stream announced their coming. this religion of dread placed of course an enormous power in the hands of the priests, who profited largely by the terrors of a credulous people.
as in greece, the divinities of the polynesian pantheon were worshipped under the palpable form of idols in large temples, or inclosures; but while apollo or jove fashioned by the hand of a phidias or scopas still command the admiration of a world288 which has long since ceased to believe in them, the rude figures which the tahitian or the hawaiian adored were models of hideous deformity.
like the ancient greeks, the polynesians had also their elysium. the higher gods, and the souls of kings, chiefs and councillors, resided in a happy island, more beautiful than any on earth; but the common people were excluded from this abode of felicity, as they have been debarred from all political rights in life. the idea of a retributive justice had no room in the polynesian mind, and birth claimed its privileges even after death, while merit was ignored.
to judge by their progress in the industrial arts, their elaborate political institutions, and the courtesy of their manners, the south sea islander, particularly the tahitians, might claim a place among civilized nations, but in many respects they were still deeply plunged in barbarism. their wars were sanguinary and cruel, their morals dissolute. infanticide was extremely common among them, and the cause of this horrible crime was not the want of food but a culpable laziness. although the fertility of the soil and the mildness of a delicious climate rendered it easy to provide for a large family, the general indolence was so great that a man with more than three children (a rare case) was looked upon as groaning under an intolerable burden, and thus thousands of infants were immolated to the love of ease of their unnatural parents.
human sacrifices were frequently offered to propitiate the gods—in war time, on the occasion of some great festival, of the illness or coronation of a king, or at the building of a temple. each of the pillars which sustained the roof of one of these edifices was planted in the body of a wretch immolated in honour of the cruel divinity to whom the building was consecrated. to the honour of polynesian humanity it must, however, be added, that the victims—either prisoners of war or persons who had incurred the enmity of some priest or noble—were not made to suffer any additional torment, but suddenly despatched by the unexpected blow of a club.
in all the larger polynesian groups the state of society briefly described in the foregoing pages has long since disappeared.
289 in hawaii, tahiti, tonga, and samoa, the ancient religion, the ancient customs, the ancient manufactures have more or less given way to european influences, and now only exist in the more remote or more insignificant islands where the missionary has either not appeared or which are too poor to tempt our avarice.
the difference between the geological structure of the different islands of the pacific has a marked influence upon the condition of their inhabitants. in the high and more extensive islands, where the structure is primitive and volcanic, the productions of the soil are more abundant and various, and the conditions for social development more favourable, than in the low small islands of a coralline structure, where food is less abundant, the sun more scorching, and generally the complexion of the inhabitants darker.
while the tahitians, sandwich islanders, samoans, and fijians cultivate the taro plant or pluck the fruits of the bread-fruit tree, the coral islander is frequently restricted to the nuts of the cocoa palm, or even to those of the screw pine, and adds to his sparing vegetable meal only a few crabs or fishes which he gathers on the reef or catches in the lagoon.
on some of the low caroline islands, whose inhabitants undertake long sea voyages, the ideas of the people have naturally a somewhat wider range; but in general the poverty of the language corresponds with the narrow circle of a life confined to so small a space and to so few objects of interest.
the inhabitants of hau or bow island, situated in the centre of the extensive paumotu group, give us a good idea of the dreary monotony of a coral islander’s life. captain beechey, who visited them in 1826, describes them as an ill-favoured, indolent race, above the middle size, with strong bones but flaccid muscles. the ugliness of the men was surpassed by that of the women, who were obliged to work in the hot sun while their lazy lords and masters looked on, reclining in the shade. having obtained the chief’s permission to fell some wood, he endeavoured to procure the natives’ assistance by liberal offers of tobacco and shirts, but in spite of this tempting salary the chief was the only man among them who could be roused from his lethargy and induced to work, and even he let the axe drop before the first tree was felled.
290 with the aid of an interpreter, captain beechey learned many interesting particulars about these islanders during his four days’ sojourn among them. they had, as they said, given up cannibalism some time ago; but, to judge by the diabolical animation which spread over the chief’s brutal countenance as he described the excellent flavour of human flesh, there is every reason to believe that they were in great danger of a relapse. these savages preferred eating their victuals raw, and were thus in fact but one degree removed from that horrid custom. a canoe full of fish having landed in the neighbourhood of the village, they immediately devoured the whole cargo, leaving nothing but the bones and fins. their marriage ceremonies were as simple as possible: a man had only to say to a woman ‘thou shalt be my wife!’ and, provided she was not pre-engaged, no further ceremony was required. the children seemed to be the only objects for which the men showed any affection; the women at least came in for no share of it. while the men stretched their lazy limbs in the shade, these unfortunate creatures were obliged to gather shell-fish on the pointed coral reefs, or to seek for pandanus nuts in the woods. they went to this work at break of day, and on returning from their morning’s labour had no time to rest, but were obliged to serve their hungry masters, who first devoured the best part of the fleshy substance inclosed in the rind of the nuts and then threw the rest to the women as we should throw a bone to a dog. after this, the women cracked the nuts with a heavy stone in order to extract the four or five small kernels about the size of an almond which they contain, and which, were laid aside for the men. as a great number of nuts was necessary to satisfy their voracious appetite, the women were in fact occupied all day long in gathering mussels, sea-urchins, and pandanus nuts, and cracking the latter.
the supremacy of the stronger sex was asserted with the utmost severity, and nowhere did the tyranny of man show itself in a more contemptible light. once a poor woman, fancying herself unobserved, ventured to eat a few kernels of the nuts she had fetched from a great distance, but unfortunately did not escape the vigilant eye of her brutal husband, who immediately rose and knocked her down. thus overworked and debased by ill-treatment, we cannot wonder if the291 females possess none of those qualities and graces which render women in europe so charming.
truly, even in the wildest regions of the earth, it would be difficult to find a spot still less adapted to the moral and intellectual improvement of its inhabitants than a coral island, despite its cloudless sky, its waving palm trees, its azure lagoon, and the magnificence of the sea hurling its snow-white breakers against the reef.
