The existence of such organized societies could not but be in the highest degree subversive to all order and decency. Accordingly, when the missionaries first arrived, they found the general depravity of morals the greatest difficulty they had to encounter. Obscenity, libidinousness, and incontinence were so ingrafted into the very nature of the people that they seemed almost ineradicable. Accordingly, we find it narrated of an intelligent convert that he expressed his conviction that “the people ought to be induced to discontinue infanticide, human sacrifice, and demon worship, but that preservation of female virtue and Christian marriage would never be obtained.”[364]
The Society Islands are said to have been formerly proverbial, even in Polynesia, for the licentiousness which is still remarkably prevalent among them. The missionary regulations have apparently mitigated the evils, and they have succeeded in establishing laws on the subject, which are not, however, binding upon strangers. The foreigners who come to these islands, while denouncing the conduct of the inhabitants, are too often the chief instigators to vice, and, finding themselves checked in their misconduct, they vent their disappointment on the missionaries.
The foreign influences at work in these islands are of a two-fold nature; one striving for the improvement of the natives, and the inculcation of virtuous principles, and the encouragement or enforcement of virtuous practices; the other including all the base and sordid passions and motives of seamen and whalers bent on the reckless enjoyment of the passing hour; of traders and adventurers eager in quest of gain; and among the worst specimens of runaway seamen, and even convicts from the Australian settlements. All these influences combine to check the advancement of the natives.
The beauty of the women in these islands has been much exaggerated. Commodore Wilkes says,[365] “I did not see among them a single woman whom I could call handsome. They have, indeed, a certain sleepiness about the eyes which may be fascinating to some, but I should rather ascribe the celebrity which their charms have acquired among navigators to their cheerfulness and gayety.” Others, who visit them with equally cool judgment, tell us that they were disappointed in their appearance, for “there were few who could be called handsome; nevertheless, they had eminent feminine graces, their manners being affable and engaging, their step easy and graceful, their behavior free and unguarded, their temper mild, gentle, and unaffected, slow to take offense, easily pacified, seldom retaining resentment or revenge, whatever the provocation.”[366]
There can be no doubt that their demeanor was winning and affable, and their conduct sportive and playful. Their industry was not very great, the few wants of the islanders being amply supplied by nature. The women prepared the poe from the bread-fruit and the ava, and, till Europeans introduced the hog, this was their usual diet, if we except the cannibal feasts of the warriors, in which the women took no part. The female occupations were weaving flowers and grasses into garlands and mats. Their chief amusement was paddling the canoe or sporting in the surf, for all the islanders took to the water, and the women were, perhaps, from the greater buoyancy of their persons, better swimmers than the men. Before the arrival of the missionaries, it was customary for the women to swim out to a ship and swarm on board, where scenes of debauchery and indecency commenced, lasting as long as the vessel lay in the harbor, and the fascination of which worked so powerfully on the excited passions of the seamen that desertions and mutiny were continually occurring.
The earliest intercourse of whites has never yet been beneficial to the untutored savage, and, had these occurrences only taken place on board the ships of foreigners, it might have been laid to the account of foreign corruption. But this was not the case. The gains derivable from the white men’s visits might give profligacy a greater zest for both sexes of the natives, for indiscriminate intercourse was a time-worn institution ere yet the European came.
The South Sea Islanders are no exception to the general rule of keeping their women in a subordinate and inferior condition. A chief is sometimes taboo, and his women may not approach him; he may see them when he pleases; at all times the woman is in bondage. Those of the chief live in separate apartments from their master, and are not permitted to associate with him on equal terms excepting when the female is of high blood. In this case she is perfectly independent, can exercise the same powers as her husband, and in some particulars can even throw off her allegiance to him.
Polygamy was, and still is, practiced among the chiefs. Even where missionary influences have been successful, the chiefs look upon the abolition of polygamy as a most objectionable innovation. They look back to their past liberty with regret, and can not understand why they are restricted to one wife. Polygamy could, of course, only be practiced by the powerful at the expense of the weak. Already, from various causes operating among savages there was a preponderance of males over females, rendered still more great by polygamy. This again depreciated female virtue, justifying illicit intercourse to those who lived in forced celibacy, and in its consequences came concealment and infanticide. To such an extent was illicit intercourse carried, that some writers assert that no girl ever reached the age of puberty a virgin. The nature of the marriage bond is very uncertain. The husband could get rid of the wife at pleasure. There seems to have been a slight distinction between marriage and concubinage. Most of these social institutions are extended over all the islands alike, with very few local differences. Infanticide, for example, has been practiced in most of the islands, but not invariably so. At Tutuila,[367] one of the Samoan group, it had never obtained. Circumcision was common among most of the natives.
Among the Samoans the women are treated with consideration.[368] The men do all the hard work, even to cooking, while the women perform only in-door labor, attend to the children, and prepare the food for the fire. In the Sandwich Islands there is no such chivalrous sentiment. At the arrival of the missionaries there were no marriage institutions among them. The only laws were such as to regulate somewhat their licentiousness. There were traditions to show that at some past time, before the discovery of the island, the marriage tie had been held in respect by the natives, and that the marriage ceremony had been an important one. At present, personal chastisement of the wife by her husband is not infrequent, and it is spoken of by them as a matter of course.
The relations of parents to children differed much at different periods. The Samoans seem to have been the most observant of moral obligations and natural ties. Among them it was the usage of the mothers to suckle the children for several years, and to bring them up with great care and attention, so much so that a crippled child was sometimes discreditable as evincing a degree of culpable carelessness in the mother.