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Updated: June 2, 2025
Notwithstanding the seriousness and devotion apparent among the Tahaitians, it is almost impossible for an European, seeing them for the first time in their Sunday attire, to refrain from laughter.
The Tahaitians eat them raw, or only steeped in sea-water. Their fishing-tackle consists of nothing more than bad angling lines and hooks; to make nets as their forefathers did, would trespass too much upon the time they are obliged to spend in prayer.
If the religion of the Missionaries has neither tended to enlighten the Tahaitians nor to render them happy, just as little can be expected from the Constitution founded upon it, which seems adapted only to draw yet tighter the bonds in which this amiable people are held by their zealous converters, and to retain them wholly under their authority.
Religion and political institutions may raise a nation in a short period to a high point of civilization, and they may also serve, as in case of the Turks, to retain them in perpetual barbarism. How will these mighty powers operate on the Tahaitians? How can they, the qualifications of their authors considered!
If the Constitution should not have exactly the effect intended, and the Tahaitians, emboldened by it, should seek to withdraw themselves from their leading-strings, then might the pupil of Nott, bound to them by no oath, come forward to them boldly, and force them back under the yoke of the Missionaries; all the while conscientiously obeying the rule of conduct which had been delivered to him, according to the interpretation he had been taught to put on it.
The inhabitants of these islands are still far less civilized than were the Tahaitians when first discovered by Wallis. Those of Maouna especially are perhaps the most ferocious people to be met with in the South Sea.
This had been introduced by the influence of the Missionaries, whose power over the minds of the Tahaitians is unbounded; they had persuaded the people to adopt it during the minority of Pomareh's son, a child of four years old at the period of our visit; but from the general regret with which the days of the absolute King were remembered, it did not appear to have given much satisfaction.
The Tahaitians, she assured me, were by no means so virtuous as the natives of the little Paradise to which she was now all impatience to return. She had a very high opinion of her Adams, and maintained that no man in the world was worthy of comparison with him. She still spoke with vehement indignation of the murder of the English by her countrymen, and boasted of the vengeance she had taken.
The Tahaitians, accustomed to a blind reverence for the Missionaries, consult them in all their undertakings, and by means of the Constitution have so confirmed their power, both as priests and rulers, that it would be difficult for governor, judge, or member of parliament, to retain their offices after having incurred their displeasure.
The dress of both sexes consists of a mantle like the Chilian pancho, and they wear hats made of reeds adorned with feathers. They still possess a great quantity of old clothes from the ship Bounty, but, with better taste than their maternal ancestors the Tahaitians, they never wear them. The island has a beautiful appearance, and is said to be extremely fruitful.
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