Atolls of the Sun

by Frederick O'Brien

To throw human hair upon the ground was strictly prohibited. It might be trodden on, and bring mischief upon the former wearer. So the chiefs would never walk under anything that might be trodden on, and aboard ships never went below deck, for that reason. Perhaps our superstition as to walking under ladders is derived from such a tapu. To stretch one’s hand or an object over the head of any one was tapu. There were a hundred things tapu to one sex. Men had the advantage in these rules, for they were made by men.

The earthly punishments for breaking tapus ran from a small fine to death, and from spoliation to ostracism and banishment. Though there were many arbitrary tapus, the whims and fantasies of chiefs, or the wiles of priests, the majority of them had their beginning in some real or fancied necessity or desirability. Doubtless they were distorted, but, like circumcision and the Mosaic barring of pork to the Jews, here was health or safety of soul or body concerned. One might cite the Ten Commandments as very old tapus.

The utter disregard for the tapus of the Marquesans shown by the whites eventually had caused them to fall into general disrepute. They degenerated as manners decayed under the influx of barbarians into Rome, as Greek art fell before the corruption of the people. The Catholic, who bowed his head and struck his breast at the exaltation of the host, could understand the veneration the Marquesans had for their chief tapus, and their horror at the conduct of the rude sailors and soldiers who contemned them. But when they saw that no gods revenged themselves upon the whites, that no devil devoured their vitals when they ate tapu breadfruit or fish or kicked the high priest from the temple, the gentle savages made up their minds that the magic had lost its potency. So, gradually, though to some people tapus were yet very sacred, the fabric built up by thousands of years of an increasingly elaborate system of laws and rites, melted away under the breath of scorn. The god of the white man was evidently greater than theirs. Titihuti, a constant attendent of the Catholic church, yet treasured a score of tapus, and associated with them these others, the dipping of holy water from the bénitier, the crossing herself, the kneeling and standing at mass, the telling of her beads, and the kissing of the cross.

The abandonment of tapus under the ridicule and profanation of the whites relaxed the whole intricate but sustaining Marquesan economy. Combined with the ending of the power of chiefs of hereditary caste, the doing away with tapus as laws set the natives hopelessly adrift on an uncharted sea. Right and wrong were no longer right or wrong.

This fetish system was very aptly called a plague of sacredness.

“Whoever was sacred infested everything he touched with consecration to the gods, and whatever had thus the microbe of divinity communicated to it could communicate it to other things and persons, and render them incapable of common use or approach. Not till the priest had removed the divine element by ceremonies and incantations could the thing or person become common or fit for human use or approach again.”

The Marquesan priests strove with might and main to extend the tapus, for they meant power and gain. Wise and strong chiefs generally had private conferences with the priests and looked to it that tapus did not injure them.

Allied with tapuism was what is called in Hawaii kahunaism, that is the witchcraft of the priests, the old wizards, who combined with the imposing and lifting of the bans, the curing or killing of people by enchantment. Sorcery or spells were at the basis of most primitive medicine. At its best it was hypnotism, mesmerism, or mind power. After coming through thousands of years of groping in physic and surgery, we are adopting to a considerable degree the methods of the ancient priests, the theurgy, laying on of hands, or invoking the force of mind over matter, or stated Christly methods of curing the sick. In Africa witchcraft or voodooism attains more powers than ever here, but even in Polynesia the test of a priest’s powers was his ability to kill by willing it. In the New Zealand witchcraft schools no man was graduated until he could make some one die who was pointed out as his subject. A belief in this murderous magic is shared by many whites who have lived long in Polynesia or New Zealand. It was still practised here, and held many in deadly fear. The victims died under it as if their strength ran out like water.

The most resented exclusion against women in the Marquesas, and one of the last to be broken, was from canoes. Lying Bill, as the first seaman who sailed their ships here, had met shoals of women swimming out miles to the vessel as it made for port. In his youth they did not dare enter a canoe in Hiva-Oa. They tied their pareus on their heads and swam out, clambered aboard the ships miles from land with the pareus still dry.

“They’d jump up on the bulwarks,” said Lying Bill, “an’ make their twilight before touchin’ the deck. The men would come out in canoes an’ find the women had all the bloomin’ plunder.”