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Updated: June 13, 2025
The dress of the lower order of females is somewhat civilized, yet it bore so strong a resemblance to that of the Polynesians as to recall the latter to our recollection. A long piece of colored cotton is wound round the body, like the pareu, and tucked in at the side: this covers the nether limbs; and a jacket fitting close to the body is worn, without a shirt.
When, finally, intellect assumes to carry on the work independently of these laws, decoration tends to become debased. Turning to other branches of art, what traces do we find of the transfer to them of textile features? Take, for example, sculpture. In the wood carving of the Polynesians we observe a most elaborate system of decoration, more or less geometric in character.
The men of Mons were of that other old rearguard, the hope of the captains of industry when there are revolts against the common lot of our industrial cities where the death-rates of young Nobodies, casualty lists of those who fall to keep us prosperous, are as ruinous as open war; a mutilation of life, a drainage of the nation's body that is easily borne by Christian folk who are moved to grief and action at the thought of Polynesians without Bibles.
At first they were quite gravelled but ultimately, by sheer hard thinking, reasoned out the result, and came one after another to assure the trader he was right. Not many people in Europe could have done the like. The course at Hatiheu is therefore less dispiriting to Polynesians than a stranger might have guessed; and yet how bald it is at best!
Presently a white man, who, by his dress, was an officer of the ship, followed by another person in a light tweed suit and straw hat, entered the boat, which then pushed off and was headed for the shore. As she approached nearer, the traders and the missionary could see that the crew were light-skinned Polynesians, dressed in blue cotton jumpers, white duck pants, and straw hats.
Their huge bodies seemed about to break through the flimsy bindings, and the carriage of their striking heads made the garments ridiculous. Most of them had fairly regular features on a large scale, their mouths wide, and their lips full and sensual. They wore no hats or ornaments, though it has ever been the custom of all Polynesians to put flowers and wreaths upon their heads.
It was populated by five thousand Polynesians, all strapping men and women, many of them standing six feet in height and weighing a couple of hundred pounds. Oolong was two hundred and fifty miles from the nearest land. Twice a year a little schooner called to collect copra.
Contact has been established with the following seventeen minority groups and races: the Eskimos of Alaska and Greenland, the Lapps of Scandinavia, the Maoris of New Zealand, the Sea-Dayaks of Sarawak, the Polynesians of the Fiji Islands, the Cree Indians of Prairie Provinces, Canada, the Cherokee Indians in North Carolina, the Oneida Indians in Wisconsin, the Omaha Indians in Nebraska, the Seminole Indians in Florida, the Mexican Indians in Mexico, the Indians of the San Blas Islands, the Indians of Chichicastenango in Guatemala, the Mayans in Yucatan, the Patagonian Indians in Argentina, the Indians of La Paz in Bolivia and the Inca Indians in Peru.
So pleased was he with them, that he returned to his western birthplace for his family, and brought them to Polynesia. Other Polynesians left the Asiatic archipelago about the end of the first century, and went to many islands. Finally they reached the Samoan, Tongan, Marquesan, Paumotuan, and Society groups, and Easter Island and New Zealand.
As the sail drew nigh, its failing to glisten white led us to doubt whether it was indeed a whale-boat. Presently, it showed yellow; and Samoa declared, that it must be the sail of some island craft. True. The stranger proving a large double-canoe, like those used by the Polynesians in making passages between distant islands. The Upoluan was now clamorous for a meeting, to which Jarl was averse.
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