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Yet it does not appear that they are apprehensive of too great an increase of the lower class of people, none of them being ever admitted into the Arreoy society.
I then spoke several sentences dictated to me by Tinah, the meaning of which I did not understand and, my pronunciation not being very exact, caused a great deal of mirth. This speech being finished I was shown another Arreoy, who had come from Ulietea, and to him likewise I was required to deliver an oration.
At about forty yards distant sat a man who, I was informed, was a principal Arreoy. A lane being made by the crowd he was addressed by one of Tinah's people, standing on the canoe, in a speech composed of short sentences which lasted about a quarter of an hour.
Arrival of an Arreoy Woman from Tethuroa. A Present delivered by Tinah for his Majesty. Other Occurrences to the Time of the Ship's Departure from Otaheite. March. From the 5th to the 14th of this month the wind blew constantly from between the north-west and south-west with a great deal of rain. This was the longest continuance of westerly winds without interruption that we experienced.
Such of the natives as I conversed with about the institution of so extraordinary a society as the Arreoy asserted that it was necessary to prevent an overpopulation. Worrow worrow no te mydidde, worrow worrow te tata. We have too many children and too many men was their constant excuse.
As polygamy is not allowed among them, to satisfy the lust of variety, they have a society called Arreoy, in which every woman is common to every man; and when any of these women happens to have a child, it is smothered in the moment of its birth, that it may not interrupt the pleasures of its infamous mother; but in this juncture, should nature relent at so horrid a deed, even then the mother is not allowed to save her child, unless she can find a man who will patronise it as a father; in which case, the man is considered as having appropriated the woman to himself, and she is accordingly extruded from this hopeful society.
I learnt from Tinah, in talking about his children, that his first-born child was killed as soon as it came into the world, he being then an Arreoy; but before his second child was born he quitted the society. The Arreoys are allowed great latitude in their amours except in times of danger. These ceremonies being ended I returned to the ship.
During this a piece of cloth was produced, one end of which I was desired to hold, and five men, one with a sucking pig and the others having each a basket of breadfruit, prepared to follow me. In this order we advanced to the Arreoy and laid the whole down before him.
It sometimes indeed happens, that the passion which prompts a woman to enter into this society, is surmounted when she becomes a mother, by that instinctive affection which Nature has given to all creatures for the preservation of their offspring; but even in this case, she is not permitted to spare the life of her infant, except she can find a man who will patronise it as his child: If this can be done, the murder is prevented; but both the man and woman, being deemed by this act to have appropriated each other, are ejected from the community, and forfeit all claim to the privileges and pleasures of the Arreoy for the future; the woman from that time being distinguished by the term Whannownow, "bearer of children," which is here a term of reproach; though none can be more honourable in the estimation of wisdom and humanity, of right reason, and every passion that distinguishes the man from the brute.
These societies are distinguished by the name of Arreoy; and the members have meetings, at which no other is present, where the men amuse themselves by wrestling, and the women, notwithstanding their occasional connection with different men, dance the Timorodee in all its latitude, as an incitement to desires, which, it is said, are frequently gratified upon the spot.
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