WE used to admire exceedingly the bland1 and gallant2 manners of the chief called Taipi-Kikino. An elegant guest at table, skilled in the use of knife and fork, a brave figure when he shouldered a gun and started for the woods after wild chickens, always serviceable, always ingratiating and gay, I would sometimes wonder where he found his cheerfulness. He had enough to sober him, I thought, in his official budget. His expenses — for he was always seen attired3 in virgin4 white — must have by far exceeded his income of six dollars in the year, or say two shillings a month. And he was himself a man of no substance; his house the poorest in the village. It was currently supposed that his elder brother, Kauanui, must have helped him out. But how comes it that the elder brother should succeed to the family estate, and be a wealthy commoner, and the younger be a poor man, and yet rule as chief in Anaho? That the one should be wealthy, and the other almost indigent5 is probably to be explained by some adoption6; for comparatively few children are brought up in the house or succeed to the estates of their natural begetters. That the one should be chief instead of the other must be explained (in a very Irish fashion) on the ground that neither of them is a chief at all.
Since the return and the wars of the French, many chiefs have been deposed7, and many so-called chiefs appointed. We have seen, in the same house, one such upstart drinking in the company of two such extruded8 island Bourbons, men, whose word a few years ago was life and death, now sunk to be peasants like their neighbours. So when the French overthrew9 hereditary10 tyrants11, dubbed12 the commons of the Marquesas freeborn citizens of the republic, and endowed them with a vote for a CONSEILLER-GENERAL at Tahiti, they probably conceived themselves upon the path to popularity; and so far from that, they were revolting public sentiment. The deposition13 of the chiefs was perhaps sometimes needful; the appointment of others may have been needful also; it was at least a delicate business. The Government of George II. exiled many Highland14 magnates. It never occurred to them to manufacture substitutes; and if the French have been more bold, we have yet to see with what success.
Our chief at Anaho was always called, he always called himself, Taipi-Kikino; and yet that was not his name, but only the wand of his false position. As soon as he was appointed chief, his name — which signified, if I remember exactly, PRINCE BORN AMONG FLOWERS— fell in abeyance15, and he was dubbed instead by the expressive16 byword, Taipi-Kikino — HIGHWATER MAN-OF-NO-ACCOUNT— or, Englishing more boldly, BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK— a witty17 and a wicked cut. A nickname in Polynesia destroys almost the memory of the original name. To-day, if we were Polynesians, Gladstone would be no more heard of. We should speak of and address our Nestor as the Grand Old Man, and it is so that himself would sign his correspondence. Not the prevalence, then, but the significancy of the nickname is to be noted18 here. The new authority began with small prestige. Taipi has now been some time in office; from all I saw he seemed a person very fit. He is not the least unpopular, and yet his power is nothing. He is a chief to the French, and goes to breakfast with the Resident; but for any practical end of chieftaincy a rag doll were equally efficient.
We had been but three days in Anaho when we received the visit of the chief of Hatiheu, a man of weight and fame, late leader of a war upon the French, late prisoner in Tahiti, and the last eater of long-pig in Nuka-hiva. Not many years have elapsed since he was seen striding on the beach of Anaho, a dead man’s arm across his shoulder. ‘So does Kooamua to his enemies!’ he roared to the passers-by, and took a bite from the raw flesh. And now behold19 this gentleman, very wisely replaced in office by the French, paying us a morning visit in European clothes. He was the man of the most character we had yet seen: his manners genial20 and decisive, his person tall, his face rugged21, astute22, formidable, and with a certain similarity to Mr. Gladstone’s — only for the brownness of the skin, and the high-chief’s tattooing23, all one side and much of the other being of an even blue. Further acquaintance increased our opinion of his sense. He viewed the CASCO in a manner then quite new to us, examining her lines and the running of the gear; to a piece of knitting on which one of the party was engaged, he must have devoted24 ten minutes’ patient study; nor did he desist before he had divined the principles; and he was interested even to excitement by a type-writer, which he learned to work. When he departed he carried away with him a list of his family, with his own name printed by his own hand at the bottom. I should add that he was plainly much of a humorist, and not a little of a humbug25. He told us, for instance, that he was a person of exact sobriety; such being the obligation of his high estate: the commons might be sots, but the chief could not stoop so low. And not many days after he was to be observed in a state of smiling and lop-sided imbecility, the CASCO ribbon upside down on his dishonoured26 hat.
But his business that morning in Anaho is what concerns us here. The devil-fish, it seems, were growing scarce upon the reef; it was judged fit to interpose what we should call a close season; for that end, in Polynesia, a tapu (vulgarly spelt ‘taboo’) has to be declared, and who was to declare it? Taipi might; he ought; it was a chief part of his duty; but would any one regard the inhibition of a Beggar on Horse-back? He might plant palm branches: it did not in the least follow that the spot was sacred. He might recite the spell: it was shrewdly supposed the spirits would not hearken. And so the old, legitimate27 cannibal must ride over the mountains to do it for him; and the respectable official in white clothes could but look on and envy. At about the same time, though in a different manner, Kooamua established a forest law. It was observed the cocoa-palms were suffering, for the plucking of green nuts impoverishes28 and at last endangers the tree. Now Kooamua could tapu the reef, which was public property, but he could not tapu other people’s palms; and the expedient29 adopted was interesting. He tapu’d his own trees, and his example was imitated over all Hatiheu and Anaho. I fear Taipi might have tapu’d all that he possessed30 and found none to follow him. So much for the esteem31 in which the dignity of an appointed chief is held by others; a single circumstance will show what he thinks of it himself. I never met one, but he took an early opportunity to explain his situation. True, he was only an appointed chief when I beheld32 him; but somewhere else, perhaps upon some other isle33, he was a chieftain by descent: upon which ground, he asked me (so to say it) to excuse his mushroom honours.
It will be observed with surprise that both these tapus are for thoroughly34 sensible ends. With surprise, I say, because the nature of that institution is much misunderstood in Europe. It is taken usually in the sense of a meaningless or wanton prohibition35, such as that which to-day prevents women in some countries from smoking, or yesterday prevented any one in Scotland from taking a walk on Sunday. The error is no less natural than it is unjust. The Polynesians have not been trained in the bracing36, practical thought of ancient Rome; with them the idea of law has not been disengaged from that of morals or propriety37; so that tapu has to cover the whole field, and implies indifferently that an act is criminal, immoral38, against sound public policy, unbecoming or (as we say) ‘not in good form.’ Many tapus were in consequence absurd enough, such as those which deleted words out of the language, and particularly those which related to women. Tapu encircled women upon all hands. Many things were forbidden to men; to women we may say that few were permitted. They must not sit on the paepae; they must not go up to it by the stair; they must not eat pork; they must not approach a boat; they must not cook at a fire which any male had kindled39. The other day, after the roads were made, it was observed the women plunged40 along margin41 through the bush, and when they came to a bridge waded42 through the water: roads and bridges were the work of men’s hands, and tapu for the foot of women. Even a man’s saddle, if the man be native, is a thing no self-respecting lady dares to use. Thus on the Anaho side of the island, only two white men, Mr. Regler and the gendarme43, M. Aussel, possess saddles; and when a woman has a journey to make she must borrow from one or other. It will be noticed that these prohibitions44 tend, most of them, to an increased reserve between the sexes. Regard for female chastity is the usual excuse for these disabilities that men delight to lay upon their wives and mothers. Here the regard is absent; and behold the women still bound hand and foot with meaningless proprieties45! The women themselves, who are survivors46 of the old regimen, admit that in those days life was not worth living. And yet even then there were exceptions. There were female chiefs and (I am assured) priestesses besides; nice customs curtseyed to great dames47, and in the most sacred enclosure of a High Place, Father Simeon Delmar was shown a stone, and told it was the throne of some well-descended lady. How exactly parallel is this with European practice, when princesses were suffered to penetrate48 the strictest cloister49, and women could rule over a land in which they were denied the control of their own children.
But the tapu is more often the instrument of wise and needful restrictions50. We have seen it as the organ of paternal51 government. It serves besides to enforce, in the rare case of some one wishing to enforce them, rights of private property. Thus a man, weary of the coming and going of Marquesan visitors, tapus his door; and to this day you may see the palm-branch signal, even as our great — grandfathers saw the peeled wand before a Highland inn. Or take another case. Anaho is known as ‘the country without popoi.’ The word popoi serves in different islands to indicate the main food of the people: thus, in Hawaii, it implies a preparation of taro52; in the Marquesas, of breadfruit. And a Marquesan does not readily conceive life possible without his favourite diet. A few years ago a drought killed the breadfruit trees and the bananas in the district of Anaho; and from this calamity53, and the open-handed customs of the island, a singular state of things arose. Well — watered Hatiheu had escaped the drought; every householder of Anaho accordingly crossed the pass, chose some one in Hatiheu, ‘gave him his name’ — an onerous54 gift, but one not to be rejected — and from this improvised55 relative proceeded to draw his supplies, for all the world as though he had paid for them. Hence a continued traffic on the road. Some stalwart fellow, in a loin-cloth, and glistening56 with sweat, may be seen at all hours of the day, a stick across his bare shoulders, tripping nervously57 under a double burthen of green fruits. And on the far side of the gap a dozen stone posts on the wayside in the shadow of a grove58 mark the breathing-space of the popoi-carriers. A little back from the beach, and not half a mile from Anaho, I was the more amazed to find a cluster of well-doing breadfruits heavy with their harvest. ‘Why do you not take these?’ I asked. ‘Tapu,’ said Hoka; and I thought to myself (after the manner of dull travellers) what children and fools these people were to toil59 over the mountain and despoil60 innocent neighbours when the staff of life was thus growing at their door. I was the more in error. In the general destruction these surviving trees were enough only for the family of the proprietor61, and by the simple expedient of declaring a tapu he enforced his right.
The sanction of the tapu is superstitious62; and the punishment of infraction63 either a wasting or a deadly sickness. A slow disease follows on the eating of tapu fish, and can only be cured with the bones of the same fish burned with the due mysteries. The cocoa — nut and breadfruit tapu works more swiftly. Suppose you have eaten tapu fruit at the evening meal, at night your sleep will be uneasy; in the morning, swelling64 and a dark discoloration will have attacked your neck, whence they spread upward to the face; and in two days, unless the cure be interjected, you must die. This cure is prepared from the rubbed leaves of the tree from which the patient stole; so that he cannot be saved without confessing to the Tahuku the person whom he wronged. In the experience of my informant, almost no tapu had been put in use, except the two described: he had thus no opportunity to learn the nature and operation of the others; and, as the art of making them was jealously guarded amongst the old men, he believed the mystery would soon die out. I should add that he was no Marquesan, but a Chinaman, a resident in the group from boyhood, and a reverent65 believer in the spells which he described. White men, amongst whom Ah Fu included himself, were exempt66; but he had a tale of a Tahitian woman, who had come to the Marquesas, eaten tapu fish, and, although uninformed of her offence and danger, had been afflicted67 and cured exactly like a native.
Doubtless the belief is strong; doubtless, with this weakly and fanciful race, it is in many cases strong enough to kill; it should be strong indeed in those who tapu their trees secretly, so that they may detect a depredator by his sickness. Or, perhaps, we should understand the idea of the hidden tapu otherwise, as a politic68 device to spread uneasiness and extort69 confessions70: so that, when a man is ailing71, he shall ransack72 his brain for any possible offence, and send at once for any proprietor whose rights he has invaded. ‘Had you hidden a tapu?’ we may conceive him asking; and I cannot imagine the proprietor gainsaying73 it; and this is perhaps the strangest feature of the system — that it should be regarded from without with such a mental and implicit74 awe75, and, when examined from within, should present so many apparent evidences of design.
We read in Dr. Campbell’s POENAMO of a New Zealand girl, who was foolishly told that she had eaten a tapu yam, and who instantly sickened, and died in the two days of simple terror. The period is the same as in the Marquesas; doubtless the symptoms were so too. How singular to consider that a superstition76 of such sway is possibly a manufactured article; and that, even if it were not originally invented, its details have plainly been arranged by the authorities of some Polynesian Scotland Yard. Fitly enough, the belief is to-day — and was probably always — far from universal. Hell at home is a strong deterrent77 with some; a passing thought with others; with others, again, a theme of public mockery, not always well assured; and so in the Marquesas with the tapu. Mr. Regler has seen the two extremes of scepticism and implicit fear. In the tapu grove he found one fellow stealing breadfruit, cheerful and impudent78 as a street arab; and it was only on a menace of exposure that he showed himself the least discountenanced. The other case was opposed in every point. Mr. Regler asked a native to accompany him upon a voyage; the man went gladly enough, but suddenly perceiving a dead tapu fish in the bottom of the boat, leaped back with a scream; nor could the promise of a dollar prevail upon him to advance.
The Marquesan, it will be observed, adheres to the old idea of the local circumscription79 of beliefs and duties. Not only are the whites exempt from consequences; but their transgressions80 seem to be viewed without horror. It was Mr. Regler who had killed the fish; yet the devout81 native was not shocked at Mr. Regler — only refused to join him in his boat. A white is a white: the servant (so to speak) of other and more liberal gods; and not to be blamed if he profit by his liberty. The Jews were perhaps the first to interrupt this ancient comity82 of faiths; and the Jewish virus is still strong in Christianity. All the world must respect our tapus, or we gnash our teeth.
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bland
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| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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indigent
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| adj.贫穷的，贫困的 | |
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adoption
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| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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deposed
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| v.罢免( depose的过去式和过去分词 )；（在法庭上）宣誓作证 | |
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extruded
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| v.挤压出( extrude的过去式和过去分词 )；挤压成；突出；伸出 | |
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overthrew
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| overthrow的过去式 | |
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hereditary
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| adj.遗传的，遗传性的，可继承的，世袭的 | |
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tyrants
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| 专制统治者( tyrant的名词复数 )； 暴君似的人； （古希腊的）僭主； 严酷的事物 | |
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dubbed
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| v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制 | |
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deposition
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| n.免职，罢官；作证；沉淀；沉淀物 | |
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highland
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| n.(pl.)高地，山地 | |
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abeyance
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| n.搁置，缓办，中止，产权未定 | |
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expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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witty
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| adj.机智的，风趣的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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behold
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| v.看，注视，看到 | |
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genial
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| adj.亲切的，和蔼的，愉快的，脾气好的 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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astute
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| adj.机敏的，精明的 | |
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tattooing
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| n.刺字，文身v.刺青，文身( tattoo的现在分词 )；连续有节奏地敲击；作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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humbug
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| n.花招，谎话，欺骗 | |
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dishonoured
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| a.不光彩的，不名誉的 | |
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legitimate
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| adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法 | |
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impoverishes
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| v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的第三人称单数 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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expedient
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| adj.有用的，有利的；n.紧急的办法，权宜之计 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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esteem
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| n.尊敬，尊重；vt.尊重，敬重；把…看作 | |
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beheld
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| v.看，注视( behold的过去式和过去分词 )；瞧；看呀；（叙述中用于引出某人意外的出现）哎哟 | |
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isle
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| n.小岛，岛 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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prohibition
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| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
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bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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propriety
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| n.正当行为；正当；适当 | |
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immoral
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| adj.不道德的，淫荡的，荒淫的，有伤风化的 | |
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kindled
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| （使某物）燃烧，着火( kindle的过去式和过去分词 )； 激起（感情等）； 发亮，放光 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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margin
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| n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘 | |
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waded
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| （从水、泥等）蹚，走过，跋( wade的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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gendarme
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| n.宪兵 | |
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prohibitions
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| 禁令，禁律( prohibition的名词复数 )； 禁酒； 禁例 | |
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proprieties
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| n.礼仪，礼节；礼貌( propriety的名词复数 )；规矩；正当；合适 | |
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survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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dames
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| n.（在英国）夫人（一种封号），夫人（爵士妻子的称号）( dame的名词复数 )；女人 | |
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penetrate
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| v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解 | |
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cloister
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| n.修道院；v.隐退，使与世隔绝 | |
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restrictions
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| 约束( restriction的名词复数 )； 管制； 制约因素； 带限制性的条件（或规则） | |
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paternal
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| adj.父亲的，像父亲的，父系的，父方的 | |
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taro
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| n.芋，芋头 | |
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calamity
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| n.灾害，祸患，不幸事件 | |
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onerous
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| adj.繁重的 | |
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improvised
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| a.即席而作的,即兴的 | |
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glistening
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| adj.闪耀的，反光的v.湿物闪耀，闪亮( glisten的现在分词 ) | |
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nervously
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| adv.神情激动地，不安地 | |
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grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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toil
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| vi.辛劳工作，艰难地行动；n.苦工，难事 | |
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despoil
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| v.夺取，抢夺 | |
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proprietor
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| n.所有人；业主；经营者 | |
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superstitious
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| adj.迷信的 | |
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infraction
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| n.违反；违法 | |
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swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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reverent
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| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
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exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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politic
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| adj.有智虑的；精明的；v.从政 | |
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69
extort
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| v.勒索，敲诈，强要 | |
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70
confessions
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| n.承认( confession的名词复数 )；自首；声明；（向神父的）忏悔 | |
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71
ailing
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| v.生病 | |
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72
ransack
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| v.彻底搜索，洗劫 | |
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73
gainsaying
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| v.否认，反驳( gainsay的现在分词 ) | |
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74
implicit
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| a.暗示的，含蓄的，不明晰的，绝对的 | |
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75
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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76
superstition
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| n.迷信，迷信行为 | |
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77
deterrent
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| n.阻碍物，制止物；adj.威慑的，遏制的 | |
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78
impudent
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| adj.鲁莽的，卑鄙的，厚颜无耻的 | |
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79
circumscription
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| n.界限；限界 | |
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80
transgressions
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| n.违反，违法，罪过( transgression的名词复数 ) | |
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81
devout
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| adj.虔诚的，虔敬的，衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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82
comity
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| n.礼让，礼仪；团结，联合 | |
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