Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 17, 2025
To me so recently from a primitive valley of the Marquesas, the aspect of most of the dwellings of the poorer Tahitians, and their general habits, seemed anything but tidy; nor could I avoid a comparison, immeasurably to the disadvantage of these partially civilized islanders. In Tahiti, the people have nothing to do; and idleness, everywhere, is the parent of vice.
In addition to these ships, there are those which run backwards and forwards to Valparaiso, and the little island trading schooners; so that the Tahitians can boast of quite a respectable fleet of vessels, not imposing perhaps in point of tonnage, but as smart and serviceable-looking as could be desired.
Greatly alarmed at this proceeding which was such a contrary reception to what they had expected from the Tahitians Todd at first imagined he had lost his reckoning and arrived at some strange island But some of the natives spoke a little English, and very soon their conduct was explained to the white men.
The native is very close to the ground. The lantana, with its yellow and magenta flowerets, umbrella ferns, and aihere, the herbe de vache, and the bohenia, used by the Tahitians for an eye lotion, were all about.
These Tahitians were without artillery, mostly without guns of any sort, but they utilized the old strategy of the intertribal wars, and rolled huge rocks down upon the French troops in narrow defiles. We saw from our seats through the shadows of the gorge of Punaruu two of the horns of Maiao, the Diadem.
Doubtless, in thus denationalizing the Tahitians, as it were, the missionaries were prompted by a sincere desire for good; but the effect has been lamentable.
The shorn locks of a Maori chief were gathered with much care and placed in an adjoining cemetery. The Tahitians buried the cuttings of their hair at the temples. In the streets of Soku a modern traveller observed cairns of large stones piled against walls with tufts of human hair inserted in the crevices.
"What name you walk about this place?" he demanded. At the same time he stole a glance seaward to where the Flibberty-Gibbet reflected herself in the glassy calm of the sea. Not a soul was visible under her awnings, and he saw the whale-boat was missing from alongside. The Tahitians had evidently gone shooting fish up the Balesuna.
As at one time the Arioi society embraced a fifth of the population, and had unbounded influence and power, this stern rule of infanticide had to do with the depopulation of the island, or, rather, the prevention of overpopulation. Yet while the Arioi had existed as far back as their legends ran, Captain Cook, as said Tetuanui, estimated the Tahitians to number seventy thousand in 1769.
On the plateau of Taravao, a hilltop raised fifty feet, is an old fort of the French, a solid construction against the stubborn Tahitians whom they insisted, with cannon and musket, must receive Christianity through the French clergy of the Order of the Sacred Heart of Jesus instead of through English dissenters.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking