A HISTORY OF TAHITI 117 



cession from usurpation, the son of the high chief was granted the fam- 

 ily title immediately upon birth, and his father who was the first to do 

 him homage, was nominally at least reduced to the rank of a vassal. 

 Before the missionaries came there was never a "king" whose authority 

 was recognized over all Tahiti, but so great in outward form was the 

 respect paid to the Ariirahi that people who passed their houses or came 

 into their presence removed all clothing to the waist, an act of homage 

 they paid also to the images of gods. The Ariirahi's feet might not 

 touch the ground in any but his native district for all he trod upon 

 became his own. Accordingly, when abroad he was carried upon the 

 back of a retainer, and it was the boast of Pomare that he was greater 

 than King George for he of Tahiti rode upon a man while the king of 

 England was obliged to content himself with a horse. 



In their marital -relations the Tahitians closely approached the prim-- 

 itive condition wherein all the women are the wives of all the men. 

 The wife of every man was also the wife of his friend, and it is probable 

 that a more licentious race never lived during historic times. As 

 Cook's narrative states, topics which with us are avoided were the chief 

 theme of conversation among the Tahitians. 



As elsewhere in Polynesia, rank descended through the mother and 

 for the purpose of maintaining their exalted state, the great chiefs inter- 

 married only among their own kindred, but such alliances were merely 

 temporary, for after the birth of a legitimate heir, women of high rank 

 consorted without scandal with endless paramours, although all their 

 children of uncertain parentage were immediately put to death. In 

 fact, infanticide was established not only as an accepted, but as a lauded 

 institution in Tahiti; and according to Ellis two or three children 

 constituted an unusually large family, and practically every woman had 

 with her own hands murdered some of her own offspring, probably two 

 thirds of the children born in Tahiti being thus disposed of immediately 

 after birth. 



In the absence of fatal epidemics and with the ever-present danger 

 of famine through over-population, such barbarous checks upon in- 

 crease had grown to be considered virtuous, and furnished the tenets of 

 the society of Areoi, said to have been established in remote times by 

 the followers of two celibate gods who although they did not enjoin 

 chastity upon their worshipers prohibited their rearing offspring. Thus 

 these bacchanalians of the Pacific roamed singing and dancing, wel- 

 comed everywhere as wits and entertainers; transient spirits flitting 

 through the world each to die the last of his race on earth. Thiey 

 constituted a large proportion of the population, for in Cook's narrative 

 we read of a fleet of 70 canoes filled exclusively with Areoi. 



Cannibalism was unknown in Tahiti at the time of its discovery, yet 

 here as elsewhere over the Pacific traces of its having been were there, 



