The hair is sometimes seen very short and sometimes very long, and this is the case with both sexes. They allow it to grow to a considerable length, and when it is a foot or eighteen inches long, they cut it off, and plait it into thin bands which are worn round the waist. The men prize these ornaments highly, and Captain Hood thinks that the love-locks are exchanged, and are valued accordingly. The younger men do not wear their beards, but the elders suffer them to grow to a great length, plait them, and adorn them with pieces of oyster or clam shell. They know the art of coloring the hair a yellowish red by the application of lime.
As to dress, the men think it quite needless, and wear nothing but the belt round the waist. Some, however, wear a very small apron, only ten or twelve inches square, and this is considered rather in the light of ornament than of dress. They are of moderate stature, rather under than over the middle height, thus forming a strong contrast to the gigantic Marquesans and Samoans. The natural color of the skin is a clear brown, and their limbs are round and well shaped.
In weapons, they use the spear, the club, and the bow, all made well and neatly. They do not seem to invade other islands, and their warfare is therefore waged mostly among themselves. It seems rather strange that in an island only thirty miles in circumference war should exist, but in Niue, the usual Polynesian custom exists of dividing an island into several districts, among which is perpetual feud.
They use a very curious weapon. On their island are a number of caves in the coral limestone, similar in character to that which has been described in [page 1006], though not approached in the same curious manner. From the roof hang vast numbers of stalactites, from which water continually drops. Indeed, the natives owe their fresh water almost entirely to these caves, and since the missionaries came to reside among them have learned to collect it by digging wells in the caves, into which the water flows, and so insure a certain instead of a precarious supply. The floor of the caves is covered with stalagmitic masses, and from these the natives make oval balls about the size of cricket balls, which they hurl from the hand with wonderful force and accuracy, not using the sling, as is the case with so many Polynesian tribes. Specimens of these balls are in the Christy collection.
These caves are evidently due to the character of the island, which is partly coral and partly volcanic, the coral having been upheaved by volcanic force, leaving the surface fissured and broken by the sudden violence of the shock. The native legend respecting the origin of the island points to the same conclusion. They state that the island was raised to its present elevation by two of their ancestors, named Hananaki and Fao, who swam there from Tonga, and found the island only just above the waves. They stamped twice upon it, the first stamp elevating the island to its present height, and the second clothing it with trees and plants. They made wives for themselves out of the Ti tree, and so the island became peopled. We may easily see in this tradition a record of the two facts that the island was elevated suddenly from the sea, and that the inhabitants are not aborigines, but emigrants from some other part of Polynesia, probably from Tonga. Though they believe themselves to be derived from this origin, they have been subject to invasion from the restless and daring Tongans, whom they repulsed by an ingenious stratagem. The Tongans, possessed of far better weapons and better disciplined than the Niue islanders, and being equally courageous, were rapidly completing the conquest of the island, when the natives took advantage of the peculiar formation of their country.
The reader will remember that Niue is rocky, and covered with deep and narrow clefts, the result of the upheaval which elevated the island above the sea. Across one of these the Niuans laid small branches, which they covered with banana and cocoa-nut leaves, and then strewed over all a slight covering of earth, which they arranged so as to look exactly like the surrounding soil. They then executed a sham retreat, and slipped round to the further side of the chasm, so that the Tongans, flushed with victory, rushed on their retreating enemies with yells of triumph, and a great number of the foremost and best warriors were hurled down to the bottom of the cavern. Before the survivors could recover from their surprise, an attack was made upon them in overwhelming numbers, and of the whole Tongan expedition not a man escaped alive.
It was formerly thought that the Niuans were cannibals, but, as far as can be ascertained, the natives have never eaten human flesh. They do not even care for animal food of any kind; and, though at the present time they have pigs in abundance, they use them almost entirely for the market to European ships, contenting themselves with bananas, yams, taro, and fish. Strangely enough, they have not imported into Niue the custom of kava drinking, and they stand almost alone in their non-use of tobacco.
Polygamy is still practised among the inhabitants of Niue, though it is fast dying out under the influence of the missionaries, who have further conferred a vast boon on the people by their discouragement of infanticide, which at one time prevailed to a terrible extent. The mere check which they have placed on this custom has already raised the number of the population by more than three hundred—a considerable increase when the small size of the island is taken into consideration.
Even before the missionaries came, a tolerably comprehensive and just code of laws was in existence, so that the Niuans were in reality much less savage than many of their neighbors, and the missionaries had a better ground to work on than in other islands of more promising aspect. Their standard of morality was much higher than is usually the case among savages, infidelity among women being severely punished. So great was their horror of this crime that illegitimate children were always thrown into the sea until the missionaries taught the people that, though the parents might be liable to punishment, the innocent children ought not to suffer.
Their punishment consisted generally in deprivation of food. For example, for some offences, the criminal was tied to a post, and allowed no food except bitter and acrid fruits, while for more serious offences he is lashed hand and foot to a bamboo for a considerable length of time, only sufficient food being given to save him from actually dying of starvation. For these punishments the missionaries have induced the natives to substitute forced labor in well sinking, road making, and other useful works.