Polynesian Dog — L uomala 
215 
FIG. 19- A Papuan and his dog hunting wild pigs (Forrest, 1779 : 59, pi. 11). 
the hair is smooth, but retains its primitive 
livery of tan or rusty ochre colour.” The silent 
and lazy dog, Smith continues, subsists on a 
vegetable diet of breadfruit and of poi made 
from taro. Entirely reserved for the table, the 
dog is a real delicacy to the natives. In the So- 
ciety Islands, Smith adds, it is now mixed in 
breed, but in the Hawaiian Islands the "pure 
breed of Poe dog is better protected.” Mention- 
ing the skinned dog that Frederick Bennett saw 
suspended over a restaurant door in Honolulu 
in the 1830’s, Smith states that the poi dog is 
the size of a terrier, with dull expression, tail 
straight or slightly curled, brown livery, feeble 
but shrill bark, and in disposition gentle and 
indolent. The poi dog, he concludes, "in aspect 
presents the mixed forms of a fox-dog, turnspit, 
and terrier.” It is just as badly shaped, he says, 
as the turnspit which is long-backed, heavy- 
bodied, and either straight- or crooked-legged; 
and like the turnspit and the pariah dog it 
shows poor breeding, degeneracy, and malfor- 
mation. 
Smith (1845, XIX: 210-211, 296), who like 
most writers on the native dog depends on 
written descriptions, gives various classifications 
of Polynesian native dogs. He distinguishes ap- 
parently between the "poe dog” (poi dog) of 
the Society and Sandwich islands and its relative, 
the "New Zealand dog.” He puts the poi dog 
into three classifications, namely, Cams jeri, 
Cams terrarius, and Cams Pacificus, Nob. The 
Fig. 20. Detail of Papuan native dog in Figure 19- 
