Love and Marriage in Polynesia. 269 
undergone any great change, and the ceremonies 
attending the marriage of any chief of note are 
as prolonged and imposing as are the dances 
and other festivities, which last for some weeks. 
Ellis, who made a careful study of the manners 
and customs of the Malayo-Polynesians inhabit¬ 
ing the Society, Austral, and Hawaiian Islands, 
gives some very interesting particulars of the 
marriage customs during the early days of 
missionary enterprise in the South Seas. At 
the present day these are unknown, and, indeed, 
the younger generation of natives are almost as 
ignorant of the customs and practices of their 
forefathers as a Yorkshire labourer is of those of 
the people of Tierra del Fuego. 
In Samoa, although the commoner people are 
married in the European fashion in a church, 
the higher chiefs still cling with pardonable 
tenacity to many of the old practices observed 
in former times ,• and, indeed, so strong a hold 
has the observance of such ceremonies upon the 
Samoan mind, that while the poorer classes are 
content to be married according to the rites of 
the Christian religion, they eagerly enter into all 
the preparations for the celebration of a chief’s 
marriage with the ancient rites, which generally 
