It does not indeed appear that any of the most civilized nations, have ever exceeded this people in the great order observed on all occasions; in ready compliance with the commands of their chiefs; and in the harmony that subsists throughout all ranks, and unites them as if they were all one man, informed with and directed by the same principle. Such a behaviour is remarkably obvious, whenever it is requisite that their chief should harangue any body of them collected together, which is frequently done. The most profound silence and attention is observed during the harangue, even to a much greater degree than is practised amongst us, on the most interesting and serious deliberations of our most respectable assemblies. And whatever might have been the subject of the speech delivered, we never saw an instance when any individual present showed signs of his being displeased, or that indicated the least inclination to dispute the declared will of a person who had a right to command. Nay, such is the force of these verbal laws, as I may call them, that I have seen one of their chiefs express his being astonished at a person’s having acted contrary to such orders; though it appeared that the poor man could not possibly have been informed in time to have observed them.[[216]]
Though some of the more potent chiefs may vie with the king in point of actual possessions, they fall very short in rank, and in certain marks of respect, which the collective body have agreed to pay the monarch. It is a particular privilege annexed to his sovereignty, not to be punctured nor circumcised as all his subjects are. Whenever he walks out, every one whom he meets must sit down till he has passed. No one is allowed to be over his head; on the contrary, all must come under his feet; for there cannot be a greater outward mark of submission, than that which is paid to the sovereign, and other great people of these islands, by their inferiors. The method is this; the person who is to pay obeisance squats down before the chief, and bows the head to the sole of his foot; which, when he sits, is so placed that it can be easily come at; and having tapped, or touched it with the under and upper side of the fingers of both hands, he rises up and retires. It should seem, that the king cannot refuse any one who chooses to pay him this homage, which is called moe moea; for the common people would frequently take it into their heads to do it when he was walking; and he was always obliged to stop, and hold up one of his feet behind him, till they had performed the ceremony. This, to a heavy unwieldy man, like Poulaho, must be attended with some trouble and pain; and I have sometimes seen him make a run, though very unable, to get out of the way, or to reach a place where he might conveniently sit down. The hands, after this application of them to the chief’s feet, are, in some cases, rendered useless for a time; for, until they be washed, they must not touch any kind of food. This interdiction in a country where water is so scarce, would seem to be attended with some inconvenience; but they are never at a loss for a succedaneum; and a piece of any juicy plant, which they can easily procure immediately, being rubbed upon them, this serves for the purpose of purification, as well as washing them with water. When the hands are in this state, they call it taboo rema. Taboo, in general, signifies forbidden, and rema is their word for hand.
When the taboo is incurred by paying obeisance to a great personage, it is thus easily washed off. But in some other cases it must necessarily continue for a certain time. We have frequently seen women, who have been taboo rema, fed by others. At the expiration of the time, the interdicted person washes herself in one of their baths, which are dirty holes, for the most part, of brackish water. She then waits upon the king, and after making her obeisance in the usual way, lays hold of his foot and applies it to her breast, shoulders, and other parts of her body. He then embraces her on each shoulder; after which she retires purified from her uncleanness. I do not know that it is always necessary to come to the king for this purpose, though Omai assured me it was. If this be so, it may be one reason why he is, for the most part, travelling from island to island. I saw this ceremony performed by him two or three times; and once by Feenou, to one of his own women; but as Omai was not then with me, I could not ask the occasion.
Taboo, as I have before observed, is a word of an extensive signification. Human sacrifices are called tangata taboo; and when any thing is forbidden to be eaten, or made use of, they say that it is taboo. They tell us, that if the king should happen to go into a house belonging to a subject, that house would be taboo, and could never more be inhabited by the owner; so that wherever he travels, there are particular houses for his reception. Old Toobou, at this time, presided over the taboo; that is, if Omai comprehended the matter rightly, he and his deputies inspected all the produce of the island; taking care that every man should cultivate and plant his quota; and ordering what should be eaten, and what not. By this wise regulation they effectually guard against a famine; a sufficient quantity of ground is employed in raising provisions; and every article thus raised, is secured from unnecessary waste.
By another prudent regulation in their government, they have an officer over the police, or something like it. This department, when we were amongst them, was administered by Feenou; whose business we were told it was to punish all offenders, whether against the state or against individuals. He was also generalissimo, and commanded the warriors, when called out upon service; but, by all accounts, this is very seldom. The king frequently took some pains to inform us of Feenou’s office; and among other things, told us that if he himself should become a bad man, Feenou would kill him. What I understood by this expression of being a bad man, was, that if he did not govern according to law or custom, Feenou would be ordered, by the other great men, or by the people at large, to put him to death. There should seem to be no doubt, that a sovereign, thus liable to be controled and punished for an abuse of power, cannot be called a despotic monarch.
When we consider the number of islands that compose this little state, and the distance at which some of them lie from the seat of government, attempts to throw off the yoke, and to acquire independency, it should seem, might be apprehended; but they tell us that this never happens. One reason why they are not thus disturbed, by domestic quarrels, may be this; that all the powerful chiefs, as we have already mentioned, reside at Tongataboo. They also secure the dependence of the other islands by the celerity of their operations; for if, at any time, a troublesome and popular man should start up in any of them, Feenou, or whoever holds his office, is immediately dispatched thither to kill him. By this means, they crush a rebellion in its very infancy.
The orders or classes amongst their chiefs, or those who call themselves such, seemed to be almost as numerous as amongst us; but there are few in comparison that are lords of large districts of territory, the rest holding their lands under those principal barons, as they may be called. I was indeed told that when a man of property dies, every thing he leaves behind him falls to the king; but that it is usual to give it to the eldest son of the deceased, with an obligation to make a provision out of it for the rest of the children. It is not the custom here, as at Otaheite, for the son, the moment he is born, to take from the father the homage and title; but he succeeds to them at his decease; so that their form of government is not only monarchical but hereditary.
The order of succession to the crown has not been of late interrupted; for we know from a particular circumstance, that the Futtafaihes (Poulaho being only an addition to distinguish the king from the rest of his family) have reigned in a direct line, for at least one hundred and thirty-five years. Upon inquiring whether any account had been preserved amongst them of the arrival of Tasman’s ships, we found that this history had been handed down to them from their ancestors, with an accuracy which marks that oral tradition may sometimes be depended upon. For they described the two ships as resembling ours, mentioning the place where they had anchored; their having staid but a few days; and their moving from that station to Annamooka. And by way of informing us how long ago this had happened, they told us the name of the Futtafaihe who was then king, and of those who had succeeded down to Poulaho, who is the fifth since that period; the first being an old man, at the time of the arrival of the ships.
From what has been said of the present king, it would be natural to suppose, that he had the highest rank of any person in the islands. But to our great surprise, we found it is not so; for Latoolibooloo, the person who was pointed out to me as king when I first visited Tongataboo, and three women, are, in some respects, superior to Poulaho himself. On our inquiring who these extraordinary personages were, whom they distinguish by the name and title of Tammaha[[217]]? we were told that the late king, Poulaho’s father, had a sister of equal rank, and elder than himself; that she, by a man who came from the island of Feejee, had a son and two daughters; and that these three persons, as well as their mother, rank above Futtafaihe the king. We endeavoured, in vain, to trace the reason of this singular preeminence of the Tammahas; for we could learn nothing besides this account of their pedigree. The mother and one of the daughters, called Tooeela-kaipa, live at Vavaoo. Latoolibooloo, the son, and the other daughter, whose name is Moungoula-kaipa, reside at Tongataboo. The latter is the woman who is mentioned to have dined with me on the 21st of June. This gave occasion to our discovering her superiority over the king, who would not eat in her presence, though she made no scruple to do so before him, and received from him the customary obeisance, by touching her foot. We never had an opportunity of seeing him pay this mark of respect to Latoolibooloo; but we have observed him leave off eating, and have his victuals put aside, when the latter came into the same house. Latoolibooloo assumed the privilege of taking any thing from the people, even if it belonged to the king; and yet in the ceremony called Natche, he assisted only in the same manner as the other principal men. He was looked upon by his countrymen, as a madman; and many of his actions seemed to confirm this judgment. At Eooa, they showed me a good deal of land, said to belong to him; and I saw there a son of his, a child whom they distinguished by the same title as his father. The son of the greatest Prince in Europe could not be more humoured and caressed than this little Tammaha was.
The language of the Friendly Islands has the greatest affinity imaginable to that of New Zealand, of Wateeoo, and Mangeea; and, consequently, to that of Otaheite, and the Society islands. There are also many of their words the same with those used by the natives of Cocos Island, as appears from the vocabulary collected there by Le Maire and Schouten.[[218]] The mode of pronunciation differs, indeed, considerably, in many instances, from that both of New Zealand and Otaheite; but still a great number of words are either exactly the same, or so little changed, that their common original may be satisfactorily traced. The language, as spoken at the Friendly Islands, is sufficiently copious for all the ideas of the people; and we had many proofs of its being easily adapted to all musical purposes, both in song and in recitative; besides being harmonious enough in common conversation. Its component parts, as far as our scanty acquaintance with it enabled us to judge, are not numerous; and in some of its rules, it agrees with other known languages. As, for instance, we could easily discern the several degrees of comparison, as used in the Latin; but none of the inflections of nouns and verbs.