42 
PORTER’S JOURNAL. 
buscade of the Happahs; and this circumstance had occasioned & 
tabboo of the strictest nature to be established, which was now in 
ful force and continued as long as we remained on the island. 
I am not acquainted with the ceremony of laying on these tab- 
booes, which are so much respected by the natives. They are, 
however, laid by the priests, from some religious motive. Some¬ 
times they are general, and affect a whole valley, as the present; 
sometimes they are confined to a single tribe; at others to a family, 
and frequently to a single person. The word tabboo signifies an 
interdiction, an embargo, or restraint; and the restrictions during 
the period of their existence may be compared to the lent of the 
catholics. They suffer, during this period, many privations; they 
are not allowed to use paint, of which they are very fond, to orna¬ 
ment their bodies; they are neither allowed to dance nor sing; the 
chiefs are bound to abstain from women; nor are they in many in¬ 
stances, allowed to enter the houses frequented by them. They 
have tabbooed places, where they feast and drink kava—tabbooed 
houses where dead bodies are deposited, and many of their trees, 
and even some of their walks are tabbooed. The women are, on 
no occasion whatever, allowed to enter their places of feasting, 
which are houses raised to the height of six or eight feet on a 
platform of large stones, neatly hewn and fitted together, with as 
much skill and exactness as could be done by our most expert ma¬ 
sons; and some of them are one hundred yards in length and forty 
yards in width, surrounded by a square of buildings executed in 
a style of elegance, which is calculated to inspire us with the 
most exalted opinion of the ingenuity, taste, and perseverance of 
a people, who have hitherto remained unnoticed and unknown to 
the rest of mankind. When we consider the vast labour requisite 
to bring from a distance the enormous rocks which form the foun¬ 
dation of these structures (for they are all brought from the sea 
side, and many of them are eight feet long and four feet thick and 
wide) and reflect on the means used in hewing them into such per* 
feet forms, with tools perhaps little harder than the materials 
Worked on, for the appearance of many of these places strongly 
mark their antiquity, and their origin can no doubt be traced to 
a period antecedant to their knowledge of iron, and when we count 
the immense numbers of such places which are every where to b* 
