Chapter XIV
Index
Search
Contact us
society of Tahiti had plenty of vices, and was a sort of Paris in its refinements of wickedness; but these had not prevented the islanders from leading as happy lives as had ever been known among men. They were like children in their morality and their thoughtlessness, but they flourished and multiplied. The Europeans came, and not only upset all their moral ideas, but also their whole political system. In old times, whenever a single chief became intolerably arrogant or threatened to destroy the rest, the others united to overthrow him. All the wars that are remembered in island tradition were caused by the overweening pride, violence or ambition of the great chiefs or districts, and ended in restoring the balance. The English came just at the moment when one of these revolutions occurred. The whole island had united to punish the chiefess of Papara for outrageous disregard of the courtesies which took the place of international law between great chiefs. They had punished Purea, had taken away the symbol of sovereignty she had assumed for her son, and had given it for safe-keeping to the chief of Paea. They had recognized the chief of Pare Arue as entitled to wear the Maro-ura, which Purea had denied him by insulting his wife. Then the chief of Paea had tried to imitate Purea and assert supreme authority, only to be in his turn defeated and killed. Probably Tu would have never attempted to imitate Tutaha and Purea if the English had not insisted on treating him as king of the whole island. He was one of the weakest of the chiefs and enjoyed little consideration as far as his military power was concerned. The other chiefs would have easily kept him in his place if the English had not constantly supported him and restored his strength when he was overthrown. English interference alone prolonged his ambition and caused the constant wars which gave no chance for the people to recover from their losses.
Pomare could gain his object in no other way than by destroying one after another the whole of the old chiefly class. As long as one of them survived he was sure to be the champion of the great body of islanders who detested the tyranny of a single ruler, and knew what such a tyranny meant for them. If their legends show nothing else,
 |
Indigenous Histories |  |
© Derived from the revised Paris edition of 1901 page 138, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-marua-138.html