Tinah dined with me on board and was today my only visitor: nevertheless the ceremony of being fed he so scrupulously observed that, even after all the attendants were sent away and we were left by ourselves, I was obliged to lift the wine to his mouth. The wives of the Earees are sometimes subject to this restriction after the birth of a child but are released after a certain time on performing a ceremony called Oammo.
After dinner Tinah invited me to accompany him with a present of provisions to a party of the Arreoys, a society described in the accounts of the former voyages: in this ceremony he made me the principal person. Our way to the place where the offering was to be made was by the side of a river along the banks of which I had always walked before this time; but on the present occasion a canoe was provided for me and dragged by eight men. On arriving at the landing-place I saw a large quantity of breadfruit with some hogs ready dressed and a quantity of cloth. At about forty yards distant sat a man who, I was informed, was a principal Arreoy. A lane being made by the crowd he was addressed by one of Tinah's people, standing on the canoe, in a speech composed of short sentences which lasted about a quarter of an hour. During this a piece of cloth was produced, one end of which I was desired to hold, and five men, one with a sucking pig and the others having each a basket of breadfruit, prepared to follow me. In this order we advanced to the Arreoy and laid the whole down before him. I then spoke several sentences dictated to me by Tinah, the meaning of which I did not understand and, my pronunciation not being very exact, caused a great deal of mirth. This speech being finished I was shown another Arreoy, who had come from Ulietea, and to him likewise I was required to deliver an oration. Tinah understanding from me that I had children in my own country he desired me to make one more offering on their account. There still remained three baskets of breadfruit, a small pig, and another piece of cloth: with these, assisted as before, I made the offering in favour of my children to the man whom I had first addressed. He made no reply to all my fine speeches but sat with great gravity and received everything as a matter of right and not of courtesy.
All that I could make out of this strange ceremony was that the Arreoys are highly respected and that the society is chiefly composed of men distinguished by their valour or some other merit, and that great trust and confidence is reposed in them; but I could not comprehend what this had to do with my children or why it should be imagined that an offering made on their account to a society of men who destroy all their children should be propitious. I learnt from Tinah, in talking about his children, that his first-born child was killed as soon as it came into the world, he being then an Arreoy; but before his second child was born he quitted the society. The Arreoys are allowed great latitude in their amours except in times of danger. Then as they are almost all fighting men (tata toa) they are restricted that they may not weaken or enervate themselves.
These ceremonies being ended I returned to the ship.
Such of the natives as I conversed with about the institution of so extraordinary a society as the Arreoy asserted that it was necessary to prevent an overpopulation. Worrow worrow no te mydidde, worrow worrow te tata. We have too many children and too many men was their constant excuse. Yet it does not appear that they are apprehensive of too great an increase of the lower class of people, none of them being ever admitted into the Arreoy society. The most remarkable instance related to me of the barbarity of this institution was of Teppahoo, the Earee of the district of Tettaha, and his wife, Tetteehowdeeah, who is sister to Otow and considered as a person of the first consequence. I was told that they have had eight children, every one of which was destroyed as soon as born. That any human beings were ever so devoid of natural affection as not to wish to preserve alive one of so many children is not credible. It is more reasonable to conclude that the death of these infants was not an act of choice in the parents; but that they were sacrificed in compliance with some barbarous superstition with which we are unacquainted. What strengthens this conjecture is that they have adopted a nephew as their heir, of whom they are excessively fond.
In countries so limited as the islands in the South Seas, the natives of which, before they were discovered by European navigators, probably had not an idea of the existence of other lands, it is not unnatural that an increasing population should occasion apprehensions of universal distress. Orders of celibacy which have proved so prejudicial in other countries might perhaps in this have been beneficial; so far at least as to have answered their purpose by means not criminal. The number of inhabitants at Otaheite have been estimated at above one hundred thousand. The island however is not cultivated to the greatest advantage: yet were they continually to improve in husbandry their improvement could not for a length of time keep pace with an unlimited population.
An idea here presents itself which, however fanciful it may appear at first sight, seems to merit some attention: While we see among these islands so great a waste of the human species that numbers are born only to die, and at the same time a large continent so near to them as New Holland, in which there is so great a waste of land uncultivated and almost destitute of inhabitants, it naturally occurs how greatly the two countries might be made to benefit each other, and gives occasion to regret that the islanders are not instructed in the means of emigrating to New Holland, which seems as if designed by nature to serve as an asylum for the superflux of inhabitants in the islands. Such a plan of emigration, if rendered practicable to them, might not only be the means of abolishing the horrid custom of destroying children as it would remove the plea of necessity but might lead to other important purposes. A great continent would be converted from a desert to a populous country; a number of our fellow-creatures would be saved; the inhabitants of the islands would become more civilised; and it is not improbable but that our colonies in New Holland would derive so much benefit as to more than repay any trouble of expense that might be incurred in endeavouring to promote so humane a plan.
The latter however is a remote consideration for the intertropical parts of New Holland are those most suited to the habits and manner of living of the islanders; and likewise the soil and climate are the best adapted to their modes of agriculture. Man placed by his Creator in the warm climates perhaps would never emigrate into the colder unless under the tyrannous influence of necessity; and ages might elapse before the new inhabitants would spread to our settlers though they are but barely within the limits of frost, that great cause of nine-tenths of the necessities of Europeans. Nevertheless besides forwarding the purposes of humanity and general convenience in bringing a people without land to a land without people the benefit of a mutual intercourse with a neighbouring and friendly colony would in itself be no inconsiderable advantage.
Among people so free from ostentation as the Otaheiteans, and whose manners are so simple and natural, the strictness with which the punctilios of rank are observed is surprising. I know not if any action, however meritorious, can elevate a man above the class in which he was born unless he were to acquire sufficient power to confer dignity on himself. If any woman of the inferior classes has a child by an Earee it is not suffered to live. Perhaps the offspring of Teppahoo and Tetteehowdeeah were destined to satisfy some cruel adjustment of rank and precedency.