Part 3
Tahiti is a typical mountain island, protected against the aggressive ocean by a coral reef which forms almost a complete wall around it, enclosing lagoons of much beauty, which teem with a great variety of fish. It is thirty-five miles in length, and on an average twelve miles in breadth. It is shaped somewhat in the form of an hourglass, the narrow part at Isthmus Terrawow. The circuit of the island by following the coast is less than one hundred and twenty miles. The ninety-mile drive which engirdles the island cuts off some of the irregular projections into the sea. The interior is very mountainous and cut into ravines so deep that it has never been inhabited to any extent. The highest peaks are Orohena and Aorii, from seven to eight thousand feet in height, the former cleft into two points of rock which are often draped with dark masses of tropic clouds. Numerous other peaks of lesser magnitude are crowded together in the center of the island, their broad foundations encroaching upon the plain. The people live on the narrow strip of low land at the base of the mountains and running down to the shore, where the soil is exceedingly fertile and always well watered by numerous rivers, brooks and rivulets. Numberless cascades can be seen from the ninety-mile drive, leaping over cliffs and appearing like silver threads in the dark green of the mountain-sides. The strip of arable land at the base of the mountains varies in width from the bare precipitous cliffs, without even a beach, to one, or perhaps in the widest places, two miles. The larger streams have cut out a few broader valleys. It is this narrow strip of land which is inhabited, the little villages being usually located near the mouth of a river on the coast-line, insuring for the inhabitants a pure water-supply and facilities for fresh-water bathing, a frequent and pleasant pastime for the natives of both sexes and all ages.
Wherever there is sufficient depth of soil, vegetation is rampant. The fertility of the soil and the stimulating effect of constant moisture on vegetable life are best seen by the vitality exhibited by the fence-posts. I have seen fence-posts a foot and more in circumference, after being implanted in the soil, strike root, sprout and develop into trees of no small size. The mountains, and more especially the ravines, are heavily timbered. There is no place on earth where the scenery is more beautiful and sublime than at many points along the ninety-mile drive. The lofty mountains, the fertile plain, the many rivers, brooks, rivulets and glimpses of foaming cascades, lagoons, of the surf beating the coral reef in the distance, the limitless ocean beyond, the luxuriant rampant vegetation, the beautiful flowers, the majestic palm-trees, the quaint villages and their interesting inhabitants, form a picture which is beautiful, and, at the same time, sublime. As a whole it is sublime; in detail, beautiful.
Beauty charms, sublimity awes us, and is often accompanied with a feeling resembling fear; while beauty rather attracts and draws us towards it.
FLEMING.
Let us see how Captain Cook was impressed with Tahiti when he first cast his eyes upon this gem of the Pacific:
Perhaps there is scarcely a spot in the universe that affords a more luxuriant prospect than the southeast part of Otaheite [Tahiti.] The hills are high and steep, and, in many places, craggy. But they are covered to the very summits with trees and shrubs, in such a manner that the spectator can scarcely help thinking that the very rocks possess the property of producing and supporting their verdant clothing. The flat land which bounds those hills toward the sea, and the interjacent valleys also, teem with various productions that grow with the most exuberant vigour; and, at once, fill the mind of the beholder with the idea that no place upon earth can outdo this, in the strength and beauty of vegetation. Nature has been no less liberal in distributing rivulets, which are found in every valley, and as they approach the sea, often divide into two or three branches, fertilizing the flat lands through which they run.
Tahiti is the same to-day as when Captain Cook visited it for the first time. The only decided changes which have taken place since are the building up of the capital city Papeete, and the construction of the ninety-mile drive. The beauty of the island has been maintained because the natives have preserved the magnificent primeval forests. Strip Tahiti of its forests and it will be made a desert in a few years. Nature relies on the forests to attract the clouds which bring the moisture, and assist in the formation and preservation of the soil. Remove the trees, and drouth and floods will destroy vegetation, and the latter will wash the existing soil into the hungry abyss of the ocean. Fertile and beautiful as Captain Cook found Tahiti, he deprecated the idea of settling it with whites.
Our occasional visits may, in some respects, have benefited its inhabitants; but a permanent establishment amongst them, conducted as most European establishments amongst Indian nations have unfortunately been, would, I fear, give them just cause to lament that our ships had ever found them out. Indeed, it is very unlikely that any measure of this kind should ever be seriously thought of, as it can neither serve the purposes of public ambition, nor of private avarice; and, without such inducements, I may pronounce, that it will never be undertaken.
The island has been invaded and taken by the whites and the results to the natives have been in many respects disastrous, which goes to prove the correctness of Captain Cook's prophecy.
THE CLIMATE
The climate of Tahiti, although tropical, is favorably influenced by the trade-winds and frequent showers. The breezes from ocean and land keep the heated atmosphere in motion, and the frequent rains throughout the year have a direct effect in lowering the temperature. The entire island from the shore to the highest mountain-peaks, is covered by forests and a vigorous vegetation. These retain the moisture and attract the pregnant clouds, securing, throughout the year, a sufficient rainfall to feed the many mountain streams and water the rich soil of the mountain-sides, valleys, ravines and lowlands along the coast. The temperature seldom exceeds 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and during the coldest months, March and April, it occasionally falls as low as 65 degrees Fahrenheit. The atmosphere is charged with humidity, and when this condition reaches the maximum degree, the heat is oppressive, more especially when there is no land or ocean breeze. If a hotel could be built at an elevation of three to four thousand feet above the level of the sea, the guests would find a climate which could not be surpassed in any other part of the world. A prolonged residence in Papeete or any other part of the island near the sea-level is debilitating for the whites. Those of the white inhabitants who can afford it, leave the island every three or five years and seek recuperation and a renewal of energy in a cooler climate, usually in California or Europe. Papeete,
## partially enclosed by mountains, and only a few feet above the level of
the sea, and on the leeward side of the island, is said to be one of the warmest places in the island. The village of Papara gets the full benefit of the trade-winds and the land-breeze, and is one of the coolest spots in Tahiti. Tahiti's summer-time is our winter. I was fortunate in visiting the island during the latter part of January. It is the time when Nature makes a special effort here to produce the luxuriant vegetation after the drenching rains of December. It is the time when the evergreen trees cast off, here and there, a faded leaf, to be replaced by a new one from the vigorous unfolding buds. It is the season of flowers and the greatest variety of fruits. It may interest the reader to know that one day seven different kinds of fruits were served at the breakfast-table, a luxury out of reach of our millionaires at their homes in the North at that time of the year. For a winter vacation, the months of January and February offer the greatest inducements. Those who are in need of an ideal mental rest, and are fond of a long ocean voyage, and enjoy tropic scenery and the marvelous products of the fertile soil of the tropics, should not fail to visit Tahiti, the little paradise in the midst of the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean.
HISTORY OF THE ISLAND
History is the witness of the times, the torch of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity.
CICERO.
It was my privilege during my brief stay in Tahiti to meet Tati Salmon, chief of the Papara district. He is a direct descendant of one of the two noble families of the island, the Tevas, and one of the most prominent and influential citizens of the island. I asked him to what race the Tahitians belonged. To this question he had a ready reply. He said: "We belong to no race; man was created here; this is the lost Garden of Eden." There is much force, if not truth, in this assertion when we take into consideration the charming beauty of the island and the bounteous provisions which Nature has made here for the existence of man. Then, too, the Tahitian is a good specimen of manhood, intellectually and physically, far superior to the Negro race and the Mongolian. Ariitaimai (Arii Taimai E), the mother of the chief just referred to and the authoress of the book mentioned in the preface, believes that the Tahitians belong to the great Aryan race, the race of Arii, and that their chiefs were Arii, not kings, and the head chiefs, Ariirahi—Great Chiefs. It was only the latter who were entitled to wear the girdle of red feathers, as much the symbol of their preeminence as the crown and sceptre of European royalty. The Tahitians are Polynesians, like the inhabitants of most of the South Seas and of Hawaii, and there can be but little doubt that the Polynesians belong to the Malay race, having migrated from island to island, from west to east, by way of Java, Samoa and the Hawaiian Islands. As these voyages had to be made by means of frail canoes, we can readily conceive the hardships endured by the bold navigators of centuries ago. A story current in Tahiti relates that it was thus that the great chief Olopaua of Hawaii, driven from home by disastrous floods, bore his wife Lu'ukia in the twelfth century, to find a new dwelling place in Tahiti, twenty-three hundred miles away. It is said that the chiefess was a poetess, a dancer famed for grace, and the inventor of a style of dress which is still made by the Hawaiians. Many of the primitive peoples trace their origin to a legend which is handed down from generation to generation.
In all ages of the world there is nothing with which mankind hath been so much delighted as with those little fictitious stories which go under the name of fables or apologues among the ancient heathens, and of parables in the sacred writings.
BISHOP PORTEUS.
The Tevas of Tahiti have their legend and it is related by Ariitaimai, as it has been told for many generations. They take pride in the story that they are the direct descendants from the Shark God. The legend tells how many centuries ago a chief of Punaauia, by the name of Te manutu-ruu, married a chiefess of Vaiari, named Hototu, and had a son, Terii te moanarau. At the birth of the child, the father set out in his canoe for the Paumotu Islands to obtain red feathers (Ura) to make the royal belt for the young prince. The legend begins by assuming that Vaiari was the oldest family, with its Maraes, and that Punaauia was later in seniority and rank. While Te manutu-ruu was absent on his long voyage to the Paumotus, a visitor appeared at Vaiari, and was entertained by the chiefess. This visitor was the first ancestor of the Tevas. He was only half human, the other half fish, or Shark God; and he swam from the ocean, through the reef, into the Vaihiria River, where he came ashore, and introduced himself as Vari mataauhoe, and, after having partaken of the hospitalities of the chiefess, took up his residence with her. But after their intimacy had lasted some time, one day, when they were together, Hototu's dog came into the house and showed his affection for his mistress by licking her face, or, as we should say now, kissed her, although in those days this mark of affection was unknown, as the Polynesians instead only touched noses as an affectionate greeting. At this the man-shark was so displeased that he abandoned the chiefess. He walked into the river, turned fish again and swam out to sea. On his way he met the canoe of the Chief Te manutu-ruu returning from the Paumotus, and stopped to speak to him. The chief invited Vari mataauhoe to return with him, but the man-shark declined, giving as his reason that the chiefess was too fond of dogs.
The legend proves that the natives regarded Vaiari as the source of their aristocracy. Papara makes the same claim, for when Vari mataauhoe left Hototu he said to her: "You will bear me a child; if a girl, she will belong to you and take your name; but if a boy, you are to call him Teva; rain and wind will accompany his birth, and to whatever spot he goes, rain and wind will always foretell his coming. He is of the race of Ariirahi, and you are to build him a Marae which you are to call Matava (the two eyes of Tahiti), and there he is to wear the Marotea, and he must be known as the child of Ahurei (the wind that blows from Taiarapu)." A boy was born, and, as foretold, in rain and wind. The name of Teva was given to him; and Matoa was built; and there Teva ruled. From this boy came the name Teva; but when and how it was applied to the clan no one knows. The members of the tribe or clan believe it must have been given by the Arii of Papara or Vaiari. To this day, the Tevas seldom travel without rain and wind, so that they use the word Teva rarivari—Teva wet always and everywhere. The Vaiari people still point out the place where the first ancestor of the clan lived as a child, his first bathing place, and the different waters in which he fished as he came on his way toward Papara. This legend is to-day as fresh in the district of Papara as it was centuries ago. It is but natural that the Tevas, one of the two most influential and powerful of the tribes of Tahiti, should be anxious to trace their ancestry to a royal origin even if the first ancestor should be a man-shark, little remembering that
It is not wealth nor ancestry, but honorable conduct and a noble disposition that make men great.
OVIDIUS.
As the Tahitians had no written language before the missionaries visited the island, little is known of its earlier history. The history of the island since its discovery has been accurately written up by Ariitaimai, an eye-witness of many of the most stirring events and on that account most to be relied upon, for
The only good histories are those that have been written by the persons themselves who commanded in the affairs whereof they write.
MONTAIGNE.
Let us follow her account of the history of the island since its discovery by Captain Samuel Wallis, June 18, 1767. The captain made a voyage around the world in Her Majesty's ship _Dolphin_, and on his way found the island, and called it Otaheite. At that time, Amo was head chief of Papara and of the Tevas, or rather his son Teriirere, born about 1762, was head chief, and Amo exercised power as his guardian, according to native custom, which made the eldest child immediately on birth, the head of the family. At that time the power of calling the Tevas to conference or war was peculiar to the Papara head chief; the military strength of the Tevas was unconquerable, if it could be united; but perhaps the most decisive part of every head chief's influence was his family connection. Nowhere in the world was marriage a matter of more political and social consequence than in Tahiti. Women occupied an important position in society and political affairs. The chiefesses held the reins of government with as much firmness as the chiefs, and commanded the same influence and respect. She was as independent of her husband as of any other chief; she had her seat or throne, in the Marae even to the exclusion of her husband; and if she were ambitious she might win or lose crowns for her children as happened with Captain Wallis' friend Oberea, the great-aunt of Ariitaimai Purea, and with her niece, Tetuauni reiaiteatea, the mother of the first King Pomare. At the time of Wallis' and Cook's visits, Papara was the principal city in Tahiti, and Papeete, the present capital city of the French possessions in Oceanica, a mere village. The Papara head chief was never the head chief of the whole island, but his power and influence were predominant throughout the whole island. The kingship which Europeans insisted on conferring on him, or on any other head chief who happened for the time to rival him, was never accepted by the natives until forced upon them by foreign influence and arms. From this it will be seen that before European influence made itself felt, the Tahitians were divided into tribes ruled by so many chiefs, with a head chief whose influence extended over the entire island. The form of native government was very simple and had many very commendable features. Wars between the tribes and between Tahiti and the neighboring island, Moorea, were, however, of frequent occurrence.
All exact knowledge concerning dates in the history of the island begins with June 24, 1767, when Wallis warped his ship into the bay of Matavai, the most northerly point of the island. The appearance of the foreigners, the first time the natives had ever seen a white man and such a great ship, created consternation. Excitement ran high on the landing of the crew. The natives attacked them, but their rude implements of warfare could not cope with firearms, and they were defeated. Two days later, June 26th, the battle was renewed and again terminated in the defeat of the natives, promptly followed by sudden friendship for their first European visitors. The natives, extremely superstitious, were at first suspicious, and it required some time to establish free relations between them and the commander and crew of the _Dolphin_. Strangely enough, the first native to board the ship was a woman. The incident is related by Wallis himself:
On Saturday, the 11th, in the afternoon, the gunner came on board with a tall woman, who seemed to be about five and forty years of age, of a pleasing countenance and majestic deportment. He told me that she was but just come into that part of the country, and that seeing great respect paid her by the rest of the natives, he had made her some presents; in return for which she had invited him to her home, which was about two miles up the valley, and given him some large hogs; after which she returned with him to the watering-place and expressed a desire to go on board the ship, in which wish he had thought it proper, on all accounts, that she should be gratified. She seemed to be under no restraint, either from diffidence or fear, when she came into the ship, and she behaved all the while she was on board with an easy freedom that always distinguishes conscious superiority and habitual command. I gave her a large blue mantle that reached from her shoulders to her feet, which I drew over her, and tied on with ribbons; I gave her also a looking-glass, beads of several sorts, and many other things, which she accepted with good grace and much pleasure. She took notice that I had been ill, and pointed to the shore. I understood that she meant I should go thither to perfect my recovery, and I made signs that I would go thither the next morning. When she intimated an inclination to return, I ordered the gunner to go with her, who, having set her on shore, attended her to her habitation, which he described as being very large and well built. He said that in this house she had many guards and domestics, and that she had another at a little distance which was enclosed in lattice work.
This visit opened the island to the Englishmen. Wallis repeatedly refers to his first visitor as "my princess, or rather queen." When he came on shore the next day he was met by the princess, who ordered that he and the first lieutenant and purser, who were also ill, should be carried by the people to her home, where they were treated in a most hospitable manner. Here is a beautiful instance of natural hospitality, charity and gratitude combined; a kindly deed dictated by unselfish motives, an exhibition of virtues so rarely met with in the common walks of life.
Hospitality to the better sort and charity to the poor; two virtues that are never exercised so well as when they accompany each other.
ATTERBURY.
The princess had full control over the curious, motley crowd, which gave way to the strangers by a sign of her hand. The house proved to be the Fare-hau, or Council-house, of Haapape, and the princess, as Wallis called her, who did not belong to Haapape, but to quite another part of the island, was herself a guest whose presence there was due to her relationship with the chief.
Wallis left the Island July 27th. His "queen" and her attendants came on board and bade him and his crew a most affectionate farewell. Neither Wallis, nor Bougainville, who visited Tahiti in April, 1768, eight months later, ever learned what her true rank was, or from what part of the island she came. According to Ariitaimai, she was her great-great-grandaunt Purea, or rather, the wife of her great-great-granduncle.
Bougainville named the island New Cytherea, and Commerson, the naturalist, charmed by its beauty and astonished at its resources, called it Utopia. The latter gave the following romantic description of the island and its people in a letter published in the _Mercure de France_:
Je puis vous dire que c'est le seul coin de la terre ou habitent des hommes sans vices, sans préjugés, sans besoins, sans dissensions. Nés sous le plus beau ciel, nourris des fruits d'une terre féconde sans culture, régis par des pères de famille plutôt que par des rois, ils ne connaissent d'autre dieu que l'Amour. Tous les jours lai sont consacrés, toute l'isle son temple, toutes les femmes—me demandez-vous? Les rivales des Geôrgiennes en beauté et les sœurs des grâces toutes unes.
Such was the simple, innocent, happy island life when Tahiti was discovered by the white man, whose pretended object was to bring to the natives the benefits of modern civilization. As to the immediate effects of European civilization on the morals of the natives, Ariitaimai has the following to say in reply to the alleged laxity of Tahitian morals: