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It was a dunghill of out-islanders, Nieues, Uveans, Tongans, Tapatueans, banded together in a common poverty; landless people of other archipelagoes, despised of the Samoans, and paying tribute to the lord of the soil a few men in war; a grudging hog in times of peace.
And then how they marched up here, every man in a new black lavalava, some forty strong, to decorate the grave? I did not feel much like gaieties, but could not refuse the Tongans. I asked Chief Justice Ide, his daughter, and a travelling salesman named Campbell to see the dancing.
Not counting the carriers, we reckoned that the active opposition comprised Leith, Soma, the one-eyed white man, and either two or three of the "tivo" dancers, and these made a formidable batch. The dancers were huge natives, possessing all the characteristics of the Tongans, while Leith, Soma, and the one-eyed white man possessed more than ordinary strength.
From Tasmania or New Caledonia, to New Zealand or Tongataboo, is again but a brief voyage; but it brings about a still more notable change in the aspect of the indigenous population than that effected by the passage of Bass's Straits. Instead of being chocolate-coloured people, the Maories and Tongans are light brown; instead of woolly, they have straight, or wavy, black hair.
The mother of Sisera cried through the lattice, Why is his chariot so long in coming? With respect to the cannibalism which the Tongans occasionally practised, Mariner says: The Deuteronomic version of the fourth commandment is hopelessly discrepant from that which stands in Exodus.
These vessels, frail and unwieldy as they appear, are navigated in the face of the trade wind between two and three hundred miles, the Tongans making voyages to Fiji and also to Samoa. We were told that six years are required to build one. The sail, formed of matting, is triangular, spread on a long yard.
I bade him think of the time when the Tongans, in token of magnanimous amity, rubbed noses with the white man, and of where those noses were now between the fingers of the Caucasian. He appeared becomingly attentive, and did me the honour before I began my peroration to change the pandanus flower from the ear next to me to the other.
"It's in the South Pacific," said he, "not so very far from Samoa and Fiji and other groups that you will have heard about, and its name is Vavau. It's one of the Tongans. It's a high, volcanic island, not a flat, coral one like the southern Tongans.
The Tongans marched up about fifty of them led by their taupo dressed in a fine mat and dancing as she came. She was followed by the girls of the village carrying the usual presents on poles, and then came the fighting men with blackened faces and wearing the dress used in the war dances. They were all tall powerful young men, and looked very fierce and magnificent.
With all that is strange and, in many cases, repulsive to us in the social arrangements and opinions respecting moral obligation among the Tongans, as they are placed before us, with perfect candour, in Mariner's account, there is much that indicates a strong ethical sense. They showed great kindliness to one another, and faithfulness in standing by their comrades in war.
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