80 EASTER ISLAND. 



reva in the line of shipping amounted to no more than a raft, safe enough 

 within the lagoon, though clumsy, but wholly unfit for voyages upon the 

 high sea beyond the coral wall. Yet we find the ancestral spirit alert. In 

 the preceding chapter I have already had occasion to cite (page 63) Cap- 

 tain Friederici's account of one involuntary voyage from Mangareva on 

 nothing better than one of these fragile rafts. 



It is impossible to find a wholly satisfactory explanation of the absence 

 of navigation from this minor unit of a race altogether and elsewhere naval 

 in the highest degree. Because Mangareva must have been populated in 

 the beginning by sailors in possession of the two shipping arts (the con- 

 struction quite as much as the handling of their canoes) it is impossible to 

 imagine that Mangareva was thus ignorant at some early period of its 

 community life. It is not difficult to construct a hypothesis which will 

 comport with Polynesian custom life in accounting for the disappearance 

 of the art. In all the Pacific communities the canoewrights form an hon- 

 orable class in the social organization. Their office is largely hereditary, a 

 guild or trade body cutting diagonally through the formal division of the 

 body politic into ranks and classes, for I have known divine chiefs and the 

 lowest orders in the social scale to meet upon the level terms of their 

 craft. The secrets of the craft are piously respected by the community at 

 large, even though there is nothing which may not be seen by the most 

 casual onlooker. The protection of the tabu is at the back of this respect ; 

 no person not duly qualified would regard it safe to attempt any of the 

 operations of canoe-making. Even the felling of the timber for the canoe 

 was far too dangerous to be attempted by the uninitiate. The legends 

 contain many tales of profane attempts to cut a tree, and the result is 

 invariably that next morning it is found erect once more upon its stump. 

 It is within the bounds of the possible that the whole guild of canoewrights 

 may have left Mangareva ; probably there would not be many on so thinly 

 populated an island. They might have been carried away as involuntary 

 voyagers in the canoes of some expedition which had made their home a 

 port of call ; it is equally possible that they would leave in a huff because 

 their work was not rewarded to their taste. The tabu would remain 

 behind them; none would venture to construct new canoes when those 

 already in existence met their sea fate ; in the second generation all knowl- 



This valuable parallel came to hand while this chapter was yet on the galleys: the parallel 

 is complete down to the raft in Tegua as in Mangareva. From direct information on the spot 

 Mrs. Coombe records the course of the loss in practically the order which I have evolved 

 a posteriori. Her observation is always accurate so far as it goes I have been able to 

 confirm that from my earlier familiarity with many of the spots which she has visited 

 but she does not propose it as anything more than superficial. I have, therefore, no hesita- 

 tion in disregarding her really untenable theory of laziness, and in giving full weight to the 

 sacrosanct or tabu character of the mysteries of the art. 



The magic of canoe-making is brought out in this note which she derives at page 172 

 from a man of Santa Cruz: 



"Only some men may dig out canoes, those whose ancestors dug them out. When a 

 father is near death, that father takes water and washes his son's hands, and they think 

 that the father is giving to his son understanding and wisdom to make canoes, and he 

 signifies it through water." 



