Wrestling in the Society Islands

Like all aspects of Maohi life, wrestling required contestants to secure the goodwill and aid of the gods. Before competing they would visit the marae of their clan or district, to have prayers said and make offerings to secure good fortune. Wrestlers were probably as much concerned to end a contest without injury as they were to win (Oliver, 1974: 316-7). For while the aim of Maohi wrestling was to throw one's opponent to the ground, it was legitimate to strike or punch them with great force, or grab them around the head or neck. The missionary William Ellis, for example, records seeing one famous Mo'orean wrestler called Mape over come one opponent by running ''the crown of his head with all his might against the temple of his antagonist'(Ellis, 1829: 1, 290)'.

Maohi of any social rank could become champion wrestlers. Matches - usually refereed by a high-ranking man of the locality in which the match occurred - the crowd watched in silent concentration. When a bout ended in a clear win, however, the victor's supporters were as jubilant as any modern day football crowd. Again, as William Ellis recorded,

'as soon as one was thrown, the scene was instantly changed; the vanquished was scarely stretched in the sand, when a shout of exultation burst from the victor's friends. Their drums struck up; the women rose, and danced in triumph over the fallen wrestler, and sung in defiance to the opposite party. These were neither silent nor unmoved spectators, but immediately commenced a most deafening noise, partly in honour of their own clan or tribe, but principally to mar and neutralize the triumph of the victors (Ellis, 1829: 1, 290-1).

Finally, it is important to note that it was not only men who wrestled. There are several descriptions by early European observers of women wrestling with each other, and men.

Naturally, the sight of women wrestling was interpreted by eighteenth-century European voyagers in the light of the deeply ingrained patriarchal attitudes of the time. They described such contests as degrading spectacles in which women allegedly fought with greater savagery than men, and reduced themselves to the level of beasts (Oliver, 1974: 318). Less pardonably, these verdicts on women's wrestling appear to have been taken at face value by scholars as late the mid-1970s (see Oliver, 1974: 599).

• James Morrison, Account of the Island of Tahiti & of the Customs of the Island, 1792. Derived from the Golden Cockerel Press edition of Morrison's Journal published in London in 1935, edited by Owen Rutter., South Seas, 2004, http://paulturnbull.org/projects/southseas/index_indigenous.html. [ Details ]