34 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



governing authority, gives them a strong sense of personal indepen- 

 dence; while the habit of domineering at will over their slaves is 

 calculated to render them haughty. These combined traits are all 

 strikingly apparent, and they nearly overcome the disposition to 

 frankness and good humour which is a general characteristic of the 

 Polynesian race. The New Zealander approaches in character, as 

 in appearance, to the American Indian. He is exceedingly proud, 

 often sullen, and always quick-tempered. We have seen a common 

 rangatira excited to fury by a little teasing, intended in perfect good 

 nature, and which, at any other island, would only have called forth 

 laughter and repartee. 



In the Society Islands, the three classes of arii or chiefs, raatira 

 or landholders, and manahune or common people, exist, as at the 

 Samoan Group. There is also a head chief, arii rahi, who is com- 

 monly termed the king, but who bears, in fact, the same relation to 

 the other chiefs, as does the rangatira rahi of New Zealand to the 

 other freemen. His power varies according to circumstances, and 

 depends much upon his personal character. It is never purely arbi- 

 trary, and is sometimes almost null. The influence of the high chiefs, 

 as well as that of the landholders in the government, is always very 

 great, and the king seldom ventures to take any step in opposition to 

 their united sentiments. The most remarkable feature in the govern- 

 ment of this country is the rule which requires not only the king, but 

 every chief and landholder, immediately on the birth of an heir, to 

 resign to him his rank and possessions, and retain merely the regency 

 (in case of the king) or the temporary control, until the heir has 

 attained the proper age to assume the management. Mr. Ellis sup- 

 poses that the object of this regulation is to secure the succession in a 

 family, and to guard against the confusion and dissensions which fre- 

 quently follow the death of a chief in the other groups. 



At Raro tonga there are, according to Mr. Williams, four classes, 

 the ariki or high chiefs, the mataiapo or governors of districts, the 

 rangatira or landholders, and the unga or tenants. The class of dis- 

 trict chiefs, however, exists in all the groups, and though forming a 

 peculiar grade of nobility, is not properly to be considered a distinct 

 class from the other chiefs. 



The natives of the Paumotu Archipelago gave us the names of 

 sixty-two islands belonging to it, of which thirteen, lying chiefly on 

 the southern and southeastern border, were said by them to be unin- 

 habited. The inhabited islands may be classed, politically, under 



