The men, especially those who had occasionally attended on the services of idol worship in the temple, were considered sacred, while the female sex were considered common; the men were allowed to eat the flesh of the animals, fowls, and a variety of fish, cocoa-nuts, and plantains, and whatever was presented as an offering to the gods; these the females were forbidden to touch on pain of death, as it was supposed they would pollute them. The fires at which the men's food was cooked were also sacred, and were forbidden to be used by the females. The baskets in which their provision was kept, and the houses in which the men ate, were also sacred, and prohibited to the females under the same cruel penalty. Hence the inferior food, both for wives, daughters, &c. was cooked at separate fires, deposited in distinct baskets, and eaten in lonely solitude by the females, in mean huts, resembling dog-kennels, when compared with the habitations of the men. The tabu, one of the most powerful and extraordinary institutions in the South Sea islands, operated with peculiar force upon the females, who were the most frequent objects of its prohibitory injunctions, and the slightest refraction of its humiliating and despotic regulations, was followed by the most sanguinary punishment. It was the charter by which, under the sanction of his imaginary gods, the male part of the population were exempted from a large part of the drudgery requisite to provide for their necessities, and were absolved from all obligation to cherish affection, or manifest kindness towards the female sex, while it was the inflexible law by which the latter were deprived of whatever, in their rude state of society, was regarded

as a privilege, and doomed to neglect, insult, oppression, and cruelty. Its operation commenced with her birth, continued through every period, circumstance, and relation of life, and terminated only with her earthly existence. It was this more than anything else that made and kept woman a slave; and wherever this has been the case, man has ever been a savage.

CHAPTER IV.

Practice of Infant Murder among the South Sea Islanders.-Numbers Destroyed.-Means by which this cruel deed was accomplished.Motives by which they were influenced in its Perpetration.-Female Infants most frequently Destroyed.-Disproportion between the Sexes. -War, its frequency.-Human Sacrifices offered during the Preparation for War.-Modes of Warfare.-Attack and Defence.-Weapons, Dress, and Ornaments of the Warriors.Treatment of the Vanquished.-Destruction of their Villages, of the aged Relatives and Infants of the defeated Party.-Insult of the Bodies of the Slain.-Customs in relation to the Dead.-Self-torture and Weeping.-Practice of embalming.-Curious preparatory Ceremonies. Houses erected for the Dead.Means employed to pacify the spirits of the departed. Probable Population of the Island at the time the Mission was established.

ONE of the most heart-rending evidences of the barbarism of the Tahitians is furnished in the

H

extent of their infanticide; the most revolting and unnatural crime that prevails, even amongst the habitations of cruelty which fill the dark places of the earth. Though this affecting species of murder has prevailed in different parts of the world, in ancient and modern times, until the introduction of christianity, it was probably practised to a greater extent, and with more heartless barbarity, by the South Sea islanders, than by any other people.

Although the date of its introduction to Tahiti and the adjacent isles has not been ascertained, the traditions of the people warrant the inference that it is of no very recent origin; though probably it was practised less extensively in former times than during the fifty years immediately preceding the subversion of idolatry.

It is not known to what extent this crime prevailed when captain Wallis discovered Tahiti, or the subsequent visits the islands received from Cook, but its frequency and avowed perpetration was such as to attract the attention of the latter. Captain Cook's general conduct among the natives was humane; he took every opportunity of remonstrating with the king and chiefs against a usage so merciless and savage. In point of number, the disproportion between the infants spared and those destroyed was truly distressing. It has been supposed that not less than two-thirds of the children were murdered by their own parents. The affecting details many of the people have given since their reception of christianity, authorise the adoption of the opinion as correct. The first three infants, they observed, were frequently killed, and in the event of twins being

born, both were rarely permitted to live. In the largest families, more than two or three children were seldom spared, while the numbers that were killed were incredible. There have been many parents, who, according to their own confessions, or the united testimony of their friends and neighbours, had inhumanly consigned to an untimely grave four or six, or eight or ten children, and sometimes even a greater number.

The painful and humiliating conviction, which we are reluctant to admit, is thus forced upon us from the testimony of the natives themselves, that during the generations immediately preceding the subversion of paganism, not less than two-thirds of the children were massacred! A female, who was accustomed to wash the linen of one of the mission families had thus cruelly destroyed five or six. Another, who resided very near them, had been the mother of eight, of which only one was spared.

The consideration of these painful facts, cannot fail to awaken, in the christian mind, lively gratitude to the Father of mercies, strong convictions of the miseries inseparable from idolatry, tender commiseration for the heathen, and vigorous efforts for the amelioration of their wretchedness.

The universality of the crime was no less painful and astonishing than its repeated perpetration by the same individuals. It does not appear to have been confined to any rank or class in the community; and though it was one of the indispensable regulations in the areoi society, enforced on the authority of those gods whom they were accustomed to consider as the founders of their order, it was not peculiar to them.

It was,

perhaps, less practised by the farmers than any other class, yet they were not innocent.

Startling and affecting as the inference is, it is, perhaps, not too much to suppose that few, if any, became mothers, in those later periods of the existence of idolatry, who did not also commit infanticide. Recent facts confirm this melancholy supposition.

During the year 1829, Mr. Williams was conversing with some friends in his own house, in the island of Raiatea, on this subject. Three native females were sitting in the room at the time, the oldest not more than forty years of age. In the course of conversation, he observed-" Perhaps some of these females have been guilty of the crime." The question was proposed, and it was found that not one was guiltless; while the astonishment of the parties was increased, when it was reluctantly confessed, that these three females had destroyed not fewer than one-and-twenty infants. One had destroyed nine, one seven, and another five. These individuals were not questioned as having been more addicted to the practice of this crime than others, but simply because they happened to be present when the conversation took place. Without reference to other deeds of barbarism, they were, in this respect, a nation of murderers; and, in connection with the areoi institution, murder was sanctioned by their laws. The methods by which infanticide was affected were various and cruel. It does not appear that they ever buried the children alive, as the Sandwich islanders were accustomed to do, by digging a hole sometimes in the floor of the dwelling, laying a piece of native cloth upon the infant's