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Updated: May 27, 2025
Adams, who was now very aged and feeble, had proposed to the Missionaries to send a Tahaitian as his successor; and fearing that the population of his island might exceed the means of subsistence which their quantity of arable land afforded, he was desirous of settling some of his families in Tahaiti.
They then ate a hearty but silent meal, and prayed again before lying down to sleep. The couch offered to Mr. Hoffman was a raised platform in the hut, thickly spread with mats, with a pair of sheets of the Tahaitian manufacture, called Tapa, for its covering.
The Tahaitian dialect is distinguished by its melody, as it has no broad or hissing consonants. The pronunciation is rendered difficult by its numerous diphthongs. The substantives do not change their terminations in declension; but the cases, of which there are but three, are formed by syllables prefixed: for example Nom. Te taata the man. Poss. No te taata of the man. Object.
It has abolished heathen superstitions, and an irrational worship, but it has introduced new errors in their stead. It has restrained the vices of theft and incontinence, but it has given birth to bigotry, hypocrisy, and a hatred and contempt of all other modes of faith, which was once foreign to the open and benevolent character of the Tahaitian.
During this time the Master of the Ceremonies had killed the pig, and baked it in the earth in the Tahaitian manner. As soon as the Royal Family had resumed their seats he brought it in, and placed it before the Queen, on a great banana-leaf, other servants spreading yams, potatoes, and bread-fruit upon the ground.
The Royal sisters divided it between them, and added it to the black crape trimming of their hats; and so great was the admiration excited by this novel article of finery, that the rage for gold-lace became an absolute fever among the more distinguished Tahaitian ladies. Vain now proved the severe lessons of the Missionaries, forbidding all adornment of the person.
Although Tahaiti is only seventeen degrees from the Equator, the heat is so much moderated by refreshing breezes that it is very supportable even to an European. Bougainville never found it above twenty-two, and often under eighteen degrees of Reaumur. That indeed was during the winter; but even in January, the middle of the Tahaitian summer, the atmosphere is much cooled by the frequent rains.
In a short time each Tahaitian had selected a Russian associate, to whom, with a fraternal embrace, he tendered his wish to exchange names, a ceremony which implied a pledge to surrender to the new friend whatever he might wish for.
Since my readers will hardly wish to study the Tahaitian language very thoroughly, I here close my extracts from its grammar. Whoever really desires to learn it must go to Tahaiti.
The crew of the Breton were further informed, that the whole population of the island consisted of forty-eight persons that the men were not allowed to marry before their twentieth year, and must only have one wife that Adams had instructed them in the Christian religion that their general language was English, but that they also understood the Tahaitian, and that they acknowledged the King of England as their sovereign.
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