University of Virginia Library

CHAPTER XXIV.

Although I had been baffled in my attempts to learn the origin
of the Feast of Calabashes, yet it seemed very plain to me that
it was principally, if not wholly, of a religious character. As a
religious solemnity, however, it had not at all corresponded with
the horrible descriptions of Polynesian worship which we have
received in some published narratives, and especially in those
accounts of the evangelized islands with which the missionaries
have favoured us. Did not the sacred character of these persons
render the purity of their intentions unquestionable, I should
certainly be led to suppose that they had exaggerated the evils
of Paganism, in order to enhance the merit of their own disinterested
labours.

In a certain work incidentally treating of the `Washington, or
Northern Marquesas Islands,' I have seen the frequent immolation
of human victims upon the altars of their gods, positively and
repeatedly charged upon the inhabitants. The same work gives
also a rather minute account of their religion,—enumerates a
great many of their superstitions,—and makes known the particular
designations of numerous orders of the priesthood. One
would almost imagine from the long list that is given of cannibal
primates, bishops, archdeacons, prebendaries, and other inferior
ecclesiastics, that the sacerdotal order far outnumbered the rest
of the population, and that the poor natives were more severely
priest-ridden than even the inhabitants of the papal states.
These accounts are likewise calculated to leave upon the reader's
mind an impression that human victims are daily cooked and
served up upon the altars; that heathenish cruelties of every description

are continually practised; and that these ignorant
Pagans are in a state of the extremest wretchedness in consequence
of the grossness of their superstitions. Be it observed,
however, that all this information is given by a man who, according
to his own statement, was only at one of the islands and remained
there but two weeks, sleeping every night on board his
ship, and taking little kid-glove excursions ashore in the daytime,
attended by an armed party.

Now, all I can say is, that in all my excursions through
the valley of Typee, I never saw any of these alleged enormities.
If any of them are practised upon the Marquesas Islands they
must certainly have come to my knowledge while living for
months with a tribe of savages, wholly unchanged from their
original primitive condition, and reputed the most ferocious in
the South Seas.

The fact is, that there is a vast deal of unintentional humbuggery
in some of the accounts we have from scientific men concerning
the religious institutions of Polynesia. These learned tourists
generally obtain the greater part of their information from the
retired old South-Sea rovers, who have domesticated themselves
among the barbarous tribes of the Pacific. Jack, who has long
been accustomed to the long-bow, and to spin tough yarns on a
ship's forecastle, invariably officiates as showman of the island
on which he has settled, and having mastered a few dozen words
of the language, is supposed to know all about the people who
speak it. A natural desire to make himself of consequence in
the eyes of the strangers, prompts him to lay claim to a much
greater knowledge of such matters than he actually possesses. In
reply to incessant queries, he communicates not only all he
knows but a good deal more, and if there be any information
deficient still he is at no loss to supply it. The avidity with
which his anecdotes are noted down tickles his vanity, and his
powers of invention increase with the credulity of his auditors.
He knows just the sort of information wanted, and furnishes it
to any extent.

This is not a supposed case; I have met with several individuals
like the one described, and I have been present at two or
three of their interviews with strangers.

Now, when the scientific voyager arrives at home with his collection

of wonders, he attempts, perhaps, to give a description
of some of the strange people he has been visiting. Instead of
representing them as a community of lusty savages, who are
leading a merry, idle, innocent life, he enters into a very circumstantial
and learned narrative of certain unaccountable superstitions
and practices, about which he knows as little as the islanders
do themselves. Having had little time, and scarcely any opportunity
to become acquainted with the customs he pretends to
describe, he writes them down one after another in an off-hand,
haphazard style; and were the book thus produced to be translated
into the tongue of the people of whom it purports to give
the history, it would appear quite as wonderful to them as it
does to the American public, and much more improbable.

For my own part, I am free to confess my almost entire inability
to gratify any curiosity that may be felt with regard to
the theology of the valley. I doubt whether the inhabitants
themselves could do so. They are either too lazy or too sensible
to worry themselves about abstract points of religious belief.
While I was among them they never held any synods or councils
to settle the principles of their faith by agitating them. An unbounded
liberty of conscience seemed to prevail. Those who
pleased to do so were allowed to repose implicit faith in an ill-favoured
god with a large bottle nose and fat shapeless arms
crossed upon his breast, whilst others worshipped an image
which, having no likeness either in heaven or on earth, could
hardly be called an idol. As the islanders always maintained a
discreet reserve, with regard to my own peculiar views on religion,
I thought it would be excessively ill-bred in me to pry
into theirs.

But, although my knowledge of the religious faith of the
Typees was unavoidably limited, one of their superstitious observances
with which I became acquainted interested me greatly.

In one of the most secluded portions of the valley within a
stone's cast of Fayaway's lake—for so I christened the scene of
our island yachting—and hard by a growth of palms, which stood
ranged in order along both banks of the stream, waving their
green arms as if to do honour to its passage, was the mausoleum
of a deceased warrior chief. Like all the other edifices of any
note, it was raised upon a small pi-pi of stones, which, being of

unusual height, was a conspicuous object from a distance. A
light thatching of bleached palmetto leaves hung over it like a
self-supported canopy; for it was not until you came very near
that you saw it was supported by four slender columns of bamboo
rising at each corner to a little more than the height of a man.
A clear area of a few yards surrounded the pi-pi, and was enclosed
by four trunks of cocoa-nut trees resting at the angles on
massive blocks of stone. The place was sacred. The sign of the
inscrutable taboo was seen in the shape of a mystic roll of white
tappa, suspended by a twisted cord of the same material from
the top of a slight pole planted within the enclosure.[3] The
sanctity of the spot appeared never to have been violated. The
stillness of the grave was there, and the calm solitude around was
beautiful and touching. The soft shadows of those lofty palmtrees!—I
can see them now—hanging over the little temple, as
if to keep out the intrusive sun.

On all sides as you approached this silent spot you caught
sight of the dead chief's effigy, seated in the stern of a canoe,
which was raised on a light frame a few inches above the level
of the pi-pi. The canoe was about seven feet in length; of a
rich, dark coloured wood, handsomely carved and adorned in
many places with variegated bindings of stained sinnate, into
which were ingeniously wrought a number of sparkling seashells,
and a belt of the same shells ran all round it. The body
of the figure—of whatever material it might have been made—
was effectually concealed in a heavy robe of brown tappa, revealing
only the hands and head; the latter skilfully carved in
wood, and surmounted by a superb arch of plumes. These plumes,
in the subdued and gentle gales which found access to this sequestered
spot, were never for one moment at rest, but kept
nodding and waving over the chief's brow. The long leaves of
the palmetto dropped over the eaves, and through them you saw
the warrior holding his paddle with both hands in the act of
rowing, leaning forward and inclining his head, as if eager to
hurry on his voyage. Glaring at him for ever, and face to face,
was a polished human skull, which crowned the prow of the
canoe. The spectral figure-head, reversed in its position, glancing
backwards, seemed to mock the impatient attitude of the warrior.

When I first visited this singular place with Kory-Kory, he

told me—or at least I so understood him—that the chief was
paddling his way to the realms of bliss, and bread-fruit—the
Polynesian heaven—where every moment the bread-fruit trees
dropped their ripened spheres to the ground, and where there
was no end to the cocoa-nuts and bananas: there they reposed
through the livelong eternity upon mats much finer than those
of Typee; and every day bathed their glowing limbs in rivers of
cocoa-nut oil. In that happy land there were plenty of plumes
and feathers, and boars'-tusks and sperm-whale teeth, far preferable
to all the shining trinkets and gay tappa of the white men;
and, best of all, women far lovelier than the daughters of earth
were there in abundance. "A very pleasant place," Kory-Kory
said it was; "but after all, not much pleasanter, he thought,
than Typee." "Did he not then," I asked him, "wish to accompany
the warrior?" "Oh, no: he was very happy where he
was; but supposed that some time or other he would go in his
own canoe."

Thus far, I think, I clearly comprehended Kory-Kory. But
there was a singular expression he made use of at the time, enforced
by as singular a gesture, the meaning of which I would
have given much to penetrate. I am inclined to believe it must
have been a proverb he uttered; for I afterwards heard him
repeat the same words several times, and in what appeared to me
to be a somewhat similar sense. Indeed, Kory-Kory had a great
variety of short, smart-sounding sentences, with which he frequently
enlivened his discourse; and he introduced them with an
air which plainly intimated, that, in his opinion, they settled the
matter in question, whatever it might be.

Could it have been then, that when I asked him whether he
desired to go to this heaven of bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, and young
ladies, which he had been describing, he answered by saying
something equivalent to our old adage—"A bird in the hand is
worth two in the bush?"—if he did, Kory-Kory was a discreet
and sensible fellow, and I cannot sufficiently admire his shrewdness.

Whenever in the course of my rambles through the valley I
happened to be near the chief's mausoleum, I always turned
aside to visit it. The place had a peculiar charm for me; I
hardly know why; but so it was. As I leaned over the railing

and gazed upon the strange effigy and watched the play of the
feathery head-dress, stirred by the same breeze which in low
tones breathed amidst the lofty palm-trees, I loved to yield myself
up to the fanciful superstition of the islanders, and could almost
believe that the grim warrior was bound heavenward. In this
mood when I turned to depart, I bade him "God speed, and a
pleasant voyage." Aye, paddle away, brave chieftain, to the
land of spirits! To the material eye thou makest but little progress;
but with the eye of faith, I see thy canoe cleaving the
bright waves, which die away on those dimly looming shores of
Paradise.

This strange superstition affords another evidence of the fact,
that however ignorant man may be, he still feels within him his
immortal spirit yearning after the unknown future.

Although the religious theories of the islands were a complete
mystery to me, their practical every-day operation could not be
concealed. I frequently passed the little temples reposing in the
shadows of the taboo groves and beheld the offerings—mouldy
fruit spread out upon a rude altar, or hanging in half-decayed
baskets around some uncouth jolly-looking image; I was present
during the continuance of the festival; I daily beheld the grinning
idols marshalled rank and file in the Hoolah Hoolah ground,
and was often in the habit of meeting those whom I supposed to
be the priests. But the temples seemed abandoned to solitude;
the festival had been nothing more than a jovial mingling of the
tribe; the idols were quite as harmless as any other logs of wood;
and the priests were the merriest dogs in the valley.

In fact religious affairs in Typee were at a very low ebb: all
such matters sat very lightly upon the thoughtless inhabitants;
and, in the celebration of many of their strange rites, they appeared
merely to seek a sort of childish amusement.

A curious evidence of this was given in a remarkable ceremony
in which I frequently saw Mehevi and several other chiefs
and warriors of note take part; but never a single female.

Among those whom I looked upon as forming the priesthood
of the valley, there was one in particular who often attracted my
notice, and whom I could not help regarding as the head of the
order. He was a noble looking man, in the prime of his life, and
of a most benignant aspect. The authority this man, whose name

was Kolory, seemed to exercise over the rest, the episcopal part
he took in the Feast of Calabashes, his sleek and complacent
appearance, the mystic characters which were tattooed upon his
chest, and above all the mitre he frequently wore, in the shape
of a towering head-dress, consisting of part of a cocoa-nut branch,
the stalk planted uprightly on his brow, and the leaflets gathered
together and passed round the temples and behind the ears, all
these pointed him out as Lord Primate of Typee. Kolory was
a sort of Knight Templar—a soldier-priest; for he often wore
the dress of a Marquesan warrior, and always carried a long spear,
which, instead of terminating in a paddle at the lower end, after
the general fashion of these weapons, was curved into a heathenish-looking
little image. This instrument, however, might perhaps
have been emblematic of his double functions. With one
end in carnal combat he transfixed the enemies of his tribe; and
with the other as a pastoral crook he kept in order his spiritual
flock. But this is not all I have to say about Kolory. His
martial grace very often carried about with him what seemed to
me the half of a broken war-club. It was swathed round with
ragged bits of white tappa, and the upper part, which was intended
to represent a human head, was embellished with a strip
of scarlet cloth of European manufacture. It required little
observation to discover that this strange object was revered as
a god. By the side of the big and lusty images standing sentinel
over the altars of the Hoolah Hoolah ground, it seemed a mere
pigmy in tatters. But appearances all the world over are deceptive.
Little men are sometimes very potent, and rags sometimes
cover very extensive pretensions. In fact, this funny little
image was the "crack" god of the island; lording it over all
the wooden lubbers who looked so grim and dreadful; its name
was Moa Artua.[4] And it was in honour of Moa Artua, and
for the entertainment of those who believe in him, that the
curious ceremony I am about to describe was observed.

Mehevi and the chieftains of the Ti have just risen from their
noontide slumbers. There are no affairs of state to dispose of;
and having eaten two or three breakfasts in the course of the

morning, the magnates of the valley feel no appetite as yet for
dinner. How are their leisure moments to be occupied? They
smoke, they chat, and at last one of their number makes a proposition
to the rest, who joyfully acquiescing, he darts out of the
house, leaps from the pi-pi, and disappears in the grove. Soon
you see him returning with Kolory, who bears the god Moa
Artua in his arms, and carries in one hand a small trough, hollowed
out in the likeness of a canoe. The priest comes along
dandling his charge as if it were a lachrymose infant he was endeavouring
to put into a good humour. Presently, entering the
Ti, he seats himself on the mats as composedly as a juggler about
to perform his sleight-of-hand tricks; and with the chiefs disposed
in a circle around him, commences his ceremony.

In the first place he gives Moa Artua an affectionate hug,
then caressingly lays him to his breast, and, finally, whispers
something in his ear; the rest of the company listening eagerly
for a reply. But the baby-god is deaf or dumb, — perhaps both,
for never a word does he utter. At last Kolory speaks a little
louder, and soon growing angry, comes boldly out with what
he has to say and bawls to him. He put me in mind of a
choleric fellow, who, after trying in vain to communicate a secret
to a deaf man, all at once flies into a passion and screams it out
so that every one may hear. Still Moa Artua remains as quiet
as ever; and Kolory, seemingly losing his temper, fetches him a
box over the head, strips him of his tappa and red cloth, and
laying him in a state of nudity in the little trough, covers him
from sight. At this proceeding all present loudly applaud and
signify their approval by uttering the adjective "motarkee"
with violent emphasis. Kolory, however, is so desirous his conduct
should meet with unqualified approbation, that he inquires
of each individual separately whether, under existing circumstances,
he has not done perfectly right in shutting up Moa Artua.
The invariable response is "Aa, Aa" (yes, yes), repeated over
again and again in a manner which ought to quiet the scruples
of the most conscientious. After a few moments Kolory brings
forth his doll again, and while arraying it very carefully in the
tappa and red cloth, alternately fondles and chides it. The toilet
being completed, he once more speaks to it aloud. The whole
company hereupon show the greatest interest; while the prien

holding Moa Artua to his ear interprets to them what he pretends
the god is confidentially communicating to him. Some items of
intelligence appear to tickle all present amazingly; for one claps
his hands in a rapture; another shouts with merriment; and a
third leaps to his feet and capers about like a madman.

What under the sun Moa Artua on these occasions had to say
to Kolory I never could find out; but I could not help thinking
that the former showed a sad want of spirit in being disciplined
into making those disclosures, which at first he seemed bent on
withholding. Whether the priest honestly interpreted what he
believed the divinity said to him, or whether he was not all the
while guilty of a vile humbug, I shall not presume to decide.
At any rate, whatever as coming from the god was imparted to
those present seemed to be generally of a complimentary nature:
a fact which illustrates the sagacity of Kolory, or else the timeserving
disposition of this hardly used deity.

Moa Artua having nothing more to say, his bearer goes to
nursing him again, in which occupation, however, he is soon interrupted
by a question put by one of the warriors to the god.
Kolory hereupon snatches it up to his ear again, and after listening
attentively, once more officiates as the organ of communication.
A multitude of questions and answers having passed
between the parties, much to the satisfaction of those who propose
them, the god is put tenderly to bed in the trough, and the
whole company unite in a long chaunt, led off by Kolory. This
ended, the ceremony is over; the chiefs rise to their feet in high
good humour, and my Lord Archbishop, after chatting awhile,
and regaling himself with a whiff or two from a pipe of tobacco,
tucks the canoe under his arm and marches off with it.

The whole of these proceedings were like those of a parcel of
children playing with dolls and baby houses.

For a youngster scarcely ten inches high, and with so few early
advantages as he doubtless had had, Moa Artua was certainly a
precocious little fellow if he really said all that was imputed to
him; but for what reason this poor devil of a deity, thus cuffed
ut, cajoled and shut up in a box, was held in greater estima-
an the full-grown and dignified personages of the Taboo
s, I cannot divine. And yet Mehevi, and other chiefs of
th estionable veracity—to say nothing of the Primate himself—

assured me over and over again that Moa Artua was the tutelary
deity of Typee, and was more to be held in honour than a whole
battalion of the clumsy idols in the Hoolah Hoolah grounds.
Kory-Kory—who seemed to have devoted considerable attention
to the study of theology, as he knew the names of all the graven
images in the valley, and often repeated them over to me—likewise
entertained some rather enlarged ideas with regard to the
character and pretensions of Moa Artua. He once gave me to
understand, with a gesture there was no misconceiving, that if
he (Moa Artua) were so minded, he could cause a cocoa-nut tree
to sprout out of his (Kory-Kory's) head; and that it would be
the easiest thing in life for him (Moa Artua) to take the whole
island of Nukuheva in his mouth and dive down to the bottom
of the sea with it.

But in sober seriousness, I hardly knew what to make of the
religion of the valley. There was nothing that so much perplexed
the illustrious Cook, in his intercourse with the South Sea
islanders, as their sacred rites. Although this prince of navigators
was in many instances assisted by interpreters in the prosecution
of his researches, he still frankly acknowledges that he
was at a loss to obtain anything like a clear insight into the puzzling
arcana of their faith. A similar admission has been made
by other eminent voyagers: by Carteret, Byron, Kotzebue, and
Vancouver.

For my own part, although hardly a day passed while I remained
upon the island that I did not witness some religious
ceremony or other, it was very much like seeing a parcel of
"Freemasons" making secret signs to each other; I saw everything,
but could comprehend nothing.

On the whole, I am inclined to believe, that the islanders in
the Pacific have no fixed and definite ideas whatever on the subject
of religion. I am persuaded that Kolory himself would be
effectually posed were he called upon to draw up the articles of
his faith and pronounce the creed by which he hoped to be
saved. In truth, the Typees, so far as their actions evince, submitted
to no laws human or divine—always excepting the thrice
mysterious taboo. The "independent electors" of the valley
were not to be brow-beaten by chiefs, priests, idols, or devils.
As for the luckless idols, they received more hard knocks than

supplications. I do not wonder that some of them looked so
grim, and stood so bolt upright as if fearful of looking to the
right or the left lest they should give any one offence. The fact
is, they had to carry themselves "pretty straight," or suffer the
consequences. Their worshippers were such a precious set of
fickle-minded and irreverent heathens, that there was no telling
when they might topple one of them over, break it to pieces, and
making a fire with it on the very altar itself, fall to roasting the
offerings of bread-fruit, and eat them in spite of its teeth.

In how little reverence these unfortunate deities were held by
the natives was on one occasion most convincingly proved to
me.—Walking with Kory-Kory through the deepest recesses of
the groves, I perceived a curious looking image, about six feet in
height, which originally had been placed upright against a low
pi-pi, surmounted by a ruinous bamboo temple, but having become
fatigued and weak in the knees, was now carelessly leaning
against it. The idol was partly concealed by the foliage of a
tree which stood near, and whose leafy boughs drooped over the
pile of stones, as if to protect the rude fane from the decay to
which it was rapidly hastening. The image itself was nothing
more than a grotesquely shaped log, carved in the likeness of a
portly naked man with the arms clasped over the head, the jaws
thrown wide apart, and its thick shapeless legs bowed into an
arch. It was much decayed. The lower part was overgrown
with a bright silky moss. Thin spears of grass sprouted from
the distended mouth and fringed the outline of the head and
arms. His godship had literally attained a green old age. All
its prominent points were bruised and battered, or entirely rotted
away. The nose had taken its departure, and from the general
appearance of the head it might have been supposed that the
wooden divinity, in despair at the neglect of its worshippers, had
been trying to beat its own brains out against the surrounding trees.

I drew near to inspect more closely this strange object of
idolatry; but halted reverently at the distance of two or three
paces, out of regard to the religious prejudices of my valet. As
soon, however, as Kory-Kory perceived that I was in one of my
inquiring, scientific moods, to my astonishment, he sprang to the
side of the idol, and pushing it away from the stones against
which it rested, endeavoured to make it stand upon its legs. But

the divinity had lost the use of them altogether; and while Kory-Kory
was trying to prop it up, by placing a stick between it and
the pi-pi, the monster fell clumsily to the ground, and would
infallibly have broken its neck had not Kory-Kory providentially
broken its fall by receiving its whole weight on his own half-crushed
back. I never saw the honest fellow in such a rage
before. He leaped furiously to his feet, and seizing the stick,
began beating the poor image: every moment or two pausing
and talking to it in the most violent manner, as if upbraiding it
for the accident. When his indignation had subsided a little he
whirled the idol about most profanely, so as to give me an opportunity
of examining it on all sides. I am quite sure I never
should have presumed to have taken such liberties with the god
myself, and I was not a little shocked at Kory-Kory's impiety.

This anecdote speaks for itself. When one of the inferior
order of natives could show such contempt for a venerable and
decrepit God of the Groves, what the state of religion must be
among the people in general is easily to be imagined. In truth,
I regard the Typees as a back-slidden generation. They are
sunk in religious sloth, and require a spiritual revival. A long
prosperity of bread-fruit and cocoa-nuts has rendered them remiss
in the performance of their higher obligations. The wood-rot
malady is spreading among the idols—the fruit upon their altars
is becoming offensive—the temples themselves need re-thatching
—the tattooed clergy are altogether too light-hearted and lazy—
and their flocks are going astray.