University of Virginia Library

46. CHAPTER XLVI.

A worthy young man, formerly a friend of mine (I speak of
Kooloo with all possible courtesy, since after our intimacy there
would be an impropriety in doing otherwise)—this worthy
youth, having some genteel notions of retirement, dwelt in a
“maroo boro,” or bread-fruit shade, a pretty nook in a wood,
midway between the Calabooza Beretanee and the Church of
Cocoa-nuts. Hence, at the latter place, he was one of the most
regular worshipers.

Kooloo was a blade. Standing up in the congregation in all
the bravery of a striped calico shirt, with the skirts rakishly
adjusted over a pair of white sailor trowsers, and hair well
anointed with cocoa-nut oil, he ogled the ladies with an air of
supreme satisfaction. Nor were his glances unreturned.

But such looks as the Tahitian belles cast at each other:
frequently turning up their noses at the advent of a new cotton
mantle recently imported in the chest of some amorous sailor.
Upon one occasion, I observed a group of young girls, in tunics
of coarse, soiled sheeting, disdainfully pointing at a damsel in
a flaming red one. “Oee tootai owree!” said they with ineffable
scorn, “itai maitai!” (you are a good-for-nothing huzzy, no
better than you should be).

Now, Kooloo communed with the church; so did all these
censorious young ladies. Yet after eating bread-fruit at the
Eucharist, I knew several of them, the same night, to be guilty
of some sad derelictions.

Puzzled by these things, I resolved to find out, if possible,
what ideas, if any, they entertained of religion; but as one's
spiritual concerns are rather delicate for a stranger to meddle
with, I went to work as adroitly as I could.

Farnow, an old native who had recently retired from active
pursuits, having thrown up the business of being a sort of
running footman to the queen, had settled down in a snug
little retreat, not fifty rods from Captain Bob's. His selecting
our vicinity for his residence, may have been with some
view to the advantages it afforded for introducing his three
daughters into polite circles. At any rate, not averse to
receiving the attentions of so devoted a gallant as the doctor,
the sisters (communicants, be it remembered) kindly extended
to him, free permission to visit them sociably, whenever he
pleased.

We dropped in one evening, and found the ladies at home.
My long friend engaged his favorites, the two younger girls, at
the game of “Now,” or hunting a stone under three piles of
tappa. For myself, I lounged on a mat with Ideea the eldest,
dallying with her grass fan, and improving my knowledge of
Tahitian.

The occasion was well adapted to my purpose, and I
began.

“Ah, Ideea, mickonaree oee?” the same as drawling out—
“By the by, Miss Ideea, do you belong to the church?”

“Yes, me mickonaree,” was the reply.

But the assertion was at once qualified by certain reservations;
so curious, that I can not forbear their relation.

“Mickonaree ena” (church member here), exclaimed she,
laying her hand upon her mouth, and a strong emphasis on the
adverb. In the same way, and with similar exclamations, she
touched her eyes and hands. This done, her whole air changed
in an instant; and she gave me to understand, by unmistakable

gestures, that in certain other respects she was not exactly a
“mickonaree.” In short, Ideea was

The explanation terminated in a burst of laughter, in which
all three sisters joined; and for fear of looking silly, the doctor
and myself. As soon as good-breeding would permit, we took
leave.

The hypocrisy in matters of religion, so apparent in all
Polynesian converts, is most injudiciously nourished in Tahiti,
by a zealous, and in many cases, a coercive superintendence
over their spiritual well-being. But it is only manifested with
respect to the common people, their superiors being exempted.

On Sunday mornings, when the prospect is rather small for a
full house in the minor churches, a parcel of fellows are actually
sent out with ratans into the highways and byways as whippers-in
of the congregation. This is a sober fact.[8]

These worthies constitute a religious police; and you always
know them by the great white diapers they wear. On week
days, they are quite as busy as on Sundays; to the great terror
of the inhabitants, going all over the island, and spying out the
wickedness thereof.

Moreover, they are the collectors of fines—levied generally
in grass mats—for obstinate non-attendance upon divine worship,
and other offenses amenable to the ecclesiastical judicature
of the missionaries.

Old Bob called these fellows “kannakippers,” a corruption,
I fancy, of our word constable.

He bore them a bitter grudge; and one day, drawing near
home, and learning that two of them were just then making a
domiciliary visit at his house, he ran behind a bush; and as
they came forth, two green bread-fruit from a hand unseen,
took them each between the shoulders. The sailors in the
Calabooza were witnesses to this, as well as several natives;
who, when the intruders were out of sight, applauded Captain
Bob's spirit in no measured terms; the ladies present vehemently
joining in. Indeed, the kannakippers have no greater
enemies than the latter. And no wonder: the impertinent
varlets, popping into their houses at all hours, are forever
prying into their peccadilloes.

Kooloo, who at times was patriotic and pensive, and mourned
the evils under which his country was groaning, frequently
inveighed against the statute, which thus authorized an utter
stranger to interfere with domestic arrangements. He himself
—quite a ladies' man—had often been annoyed thereby. He
considered the kannakippers a bore.

Besides their confounded inquisitiveness, they add insult to
injury, by making a point of dining out every day at some hut
within the limits of their jurisdiction. As for the gentleman of
the house, his meek endurance of these things is amazing. But
“good easy man,” there is nothing for him but to be as hospitable
as possible.

These gentry are indefatigable. At the dead of night prowling
round the houses, and in the daytime hunting amorous
couples in the groves. Yet in one instance, the chase completely
baffled them.

It was thus.

Several weeks previous to our arrival at the island, some
one's husband and another person's wife, having taken a mutual
fancy for each other, went out for a walk. The alarm was
raised, and with hue and cry they were pursued; but nothing

was seen of them again until the lapse of some ninety days;
when we were called out from the Calabooza to behold a great
mob inclosing the lovers, and escorting them for trial to the
village.

Their appearance was most singular. The girdle excepted,
they were quite naked; their hair was long, burned yellow at
the ends, and entangled with burs; and their bodies scratched
and scarred in all directions. It seems, that acting upon the
“love in a cottage” principle, they had gone right into the
interior; and throwing up a hut in an uninhabited valley, had
lived there, until in an unlucky stroll, they were observed and
captured.

They were subsequently condemned to make one hundred
fathoms of Broom Road—a six months' work, if not more.

Often, when seated in a house, conversing quietly with its
inmates, I have known them betray the greatest confusion at the
sudden announcement of a kannakipper's being in sight. To
be reported by one of these officials as a “Tootai Owree” (in
general, signifying a bad person or disbeliever in Christianity),
is as much dreaded as the forefinger of Titus Oates was, leveled
at an alledged papist.

But the islanders take a sly revenge upon them. Upon
entering a dwelling, the kannakippers oftentimes volunteer a
pharisaical prayer-meeting: hence, they go in secret by the
name of “Boora-Artuas,” literally, “Pray-to-Gods.”