The custom of tattooing so frequent among the Malays, and even among the Negroes and American Indians, was nowhere so universally and so elaborately practised as among the South Sea islanders. Each group had its particular patterns, each rank was differently marked. The instrument used for this painful operation was a kind of comb, the teeth of which were struck just through the skin, after which the punctures were rubbed with a kind of paste made of soot and oil which left an indelible stain.
The industrial dexterity of this ingenious people appeared in the manufacture of many other articles besides the Tapa. Rushes, grass, the bark of trees, and fibrous leaves furnished the material for finer mats than any made in Europe. The coarser kind of matting was employed for sleeping on in the night, or sitting on through the day; the finer sort was converted into garments in rainy weather, the Tapa being soon penetrated by wet. They were also very expert in making basket and wicker work; their baskets were of a vast number of different patterns, many of them exceedingly neat, and the making of them was an art practised by everyone, both men and women. Essentially maritime in their tastes, they excelled in the construction of their canoes, which were the more to be admired as an adze made of stone, a chisel or gouge made of bone, a rasp of coral, and the skin of a sting ray as a file and polisher, were the only tools which they possessed. With these rude implements they generally took up several days in felling a tree, which was then split into planks. The boards, having been very dexterously smoothed, were afterwards fitted to the boat with the same exactness that might be expected from an expert joiner.
To fasten them together, holes were bored with a piece of bone fixed into a stick for that purpose, and through these holes a kind of plaited cordage was passed, so as to hold the planks strongly together. The seams were caulked with dry rushes, and the whole outside of the vessel was painted over with a kind of gummy juice which supplied the place of pitch. Considering the inferiority of their tools, the building of one of their large war canoes, which sometimes had the enormous length of 108 feet and could hold forty men, was undoubtedly a piece of workmanship not inferior to the huge vessels constructed in Europe with the assistance of iron. Generally two of these war canoes were lashed together, with two masts set up between them, and a high platform raised above, on which the warriors, armed with spears and slings, were stationed; the rowers sat below, ready to receive the wounded from above and to send reinforcements to take their place. Single boats had an outrigger on one side, and only one mast in the middle; and in these frail constructions, they did not hesitate to sail far beyond the sight of land, shaping their course in the daytime by the sun, at night by the stars, to which they gave their particular names.
A fleet of war canoes with its curved figures, its waving pennants, and its men gracefully clothed in flowing garments, afforded a highly picturesque spectacle, which might give some idea of the vessels in which the Argonauts sailed to Colchis, or the Homeric heroes embarked for the destruction of Troy.
Accustomed to bathe from infancy, the half-amphibious South Sea Islanders are admirable swimmers. Captain Cook was amazed at the natatorial expertness of the Tahitians in a tremendously high surf, in which the best European swimmer would have been drowned, as the shore was covered with pebbles and large stones. Whenever a huge wave broke near them they dived under it and rose again on the other side. The stern of an old canoe added much to their sport. This they took out before them, and swam as far as the outermost breach in the reef, through which the sea came pouring in; when two or three getting into it and turning the square end to the breaking waves, were driven in towards the shore with incredible rapidity, sometimes almost to the beach, but generally the wave broke over them before they got half-way, in which case they dived and rose to the other side with the canoe in their hands and swimming out with it again were again driven back.
On the border of the reef of the island of Huaheini, Ellis frequently saw more than a hundred persons of all ages play like dolphins in the rolling breakers, sometimes riding on the crest of a wave and nearly enveloped with foam, and then again disappearing under the billows, which rolled like mountains above them.
The dwellings of the South Sea Islanders were small huts built under the shade of bread-fruit trees or cocoa palms, and open at the sides, so as to allow a free entrance to the cooling breeze—a great enjoyment in a climate blessed with a perpetual spring. A strong thatch of palm leaves effectually kept out the rain, and the floor was covered with hay, over which they spread mats to sleep on, this being the chief use to which their simple constructions were devoted, for, unless it rained, they ate and performed all their work in the open air.
The form of government in the large Polynesian groups was monarchical and aristocratic. When Captain Wallis first landed on Tahiti, a queen reigned over the beautiful island, and when Cook discovered the Sandwich Archipelago a succession of kings had long ruled over Hawaii. The genealogy of the great nobles was traced back as far as the remotest periods of their legendary history, and in some islands the kings, as in the old times of Greece, derived their origin in a direct line from the gods, so that religion lent its aid to secure their authority by the prestige of birth. Their person was sacred, none of the lower classes was allowed to touch them, and he who should have ventured to cast his shadow over their path would have been punished with death. Whenever the king or queen appeared in public, they were always carried on the shoulders of men, whose honourable office exonerated them from all other labour. In this manner they travelled full speed at the rate of more than five miles an hour. Other carriers, with a considerable retinue, ran alongside for the relief of their tired comrade, and at each relay royalty never placed its foot upon the ground, but vaulted over the head of the exhausted carrier upon the shoulders of his successor, who instantly proceeded on his journey at a sharp trot.
In the Friendly Archipelago the Tui Tonga, a sacred personage descending in a direct line from one of the chief Polynesian gods, enjoyed divine honours, which were paid him not only by his countrymen, but even by part of Samoa and the Feejee Islands. The highest nobles were obliged to sit down when he passed; a mark of reverence which they themselves exacted from the meanest peasant.
An etiquette as severe and circumstantial as that which prescribes the courtly forms existing among the most civilised people of Asia or Europe, served to maintain the wide line of demarcation which separated the lords of the land from the common artisans and cultivators of the soil: and the strange superstition of the Tabu, one of the most effectual instruments of government ever invented by man, still further secured the willing obedience of the people.