SOME NATIVES OF AUSTRALASIA. 617 



noa, or profane ; the latter ra, or sacred ; and most of the interdic- 

 tions of things tabooed fell on the weaker sex. The women never 

 shared the family meal, and they were regarded as common prop- 

 erty in the households of the chiefs, where polygamy was the rule. 

 Before the arrival of the Europeans, infanticide was systemati- 

 cally practiced ; in Tahiti and some other groups there existed a 

 special caste, among whom this custom was even regarded as a 

 duty. Hence, doubtless, arose the habit of adopting strange 

 children, almost universal in Tahiti, where it gave rise to all 

 manner of complications connected with the tenure and inherit- 

 ance of property. 



In Polynesia the government was almost everywhere centered 

 in the hands of powerful chiefs, against whose mandates there 

 was no appeal. A vigorous hierarchy separated the social classes 

 one from another, proprietors being subject to the chiefs, the poor 

 to the rich, the women to the men ; but over all custom reigned 

 supreme. This law of taboo, which regulated all movements and 

 every individual act, often pressed hard even on its promulgators, 

 and the terrible penalties it enforced against the contumacious 

 certainly contributed to increase the ferocity of the oceanic popu- 

 lations. Almost the only punishment was death, and human 

 sacrifices in honor of the gods were the crowning religious rite. 

 In some places the victims were baked on the altars, and their 

 flesh, wrapped in taro-leaves, was distributed among the warriors. 



Yet, despite the little value attached to human life, the death 

 of adult men gave rise to much mourning and solemn obsequies. 

 Nor was this respect for the departed an empty ceremonial, for 

 the ancestors of the Polynesians were raised to the rank of gods, 

 taking their place with those who hurled the thunderbolt and 

 stirred up the angry waters. A certain victorious hero thus be- 

 came the god of war, and had to be propitiated with supplica- 

 tions. But the common folk and captives were held to be " soul- 

 less," although a spirit was attributed to nearly all natural 

 objects. 



In his book on The Cradle of the Aryans, Prof. Rendall takes the position 

 of an independent critic. Reviewing the theories that have been offered, and the 

 arguments, both in favor of an Asiatic and of a European origin, he concludes that 

 the portion of the white race to which the Indo-European languages properly be- 

 long had its first home in southern Scandinavia, and is best represented by the 

 Swedes and Norwegians of the present day. Father Van den Gheyn, on the other 

 hand, in his recently published pamphlet, L'Origine Europeenne des Aryas, 

 sums up the discussion from the point of view of the old theory of a home in the 

 basin of the Oxus and Jaxartes. M. Reinach, reviewing his book, opposes the 

 idea of a European home, but commits himself no further than to say that the 

 spot is ; ' somewhere in Asia." 

 vol. xxxvii. — 44 



