136 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
engender pride, occupy the head and the hands about 
trifles, to the neglect of more important matters, indu¬ 
cing them to devote to the adorning of the person that 
time which might with greater advantage be appropriated 
to the cultivation of morals, and the improvement of 
their minds. The Missionaries, however, have not, in 
any degree, introduced the love of finery; they found it 
there, and cannot be supposed to have produced any 
change for the worse, in the taste of a people, by whom 
a black coat fringed round the edge with red feathers 
was considered a suitable dress even for a high-priest. 
The most showy English dress they ever saw, would 
probably, in the estimation of every beholder, appear 
comparatively plain, when placed by the side of those 
the natives formerly wore. The splendid appearance of 
the loose and flowing ahu puu, or the richness of the 
tiputa, dyed in the bright and favourite scarlet and 
yellow colours, together with some of their head-dresses 
of tropic-bird feathers, and garlands of the gayest 
flowers, gave them certainly an imposing appearance. 
The former continued to be worn after their renun¬ 
ciation of idolatry; and the Missionaries knew no 
reason why they should recommend the discontinuance 
of a dress to which the nation was accustomed, merely 
on account of its gay appearance. 
Convinced it is not in the dress with which the 
person is invested, but in the feelings of the heart 
with which that dress is regarded, that the evil exists— 
and that pride does not consist in the wearing of 
apparel superior to that to which an individual may 
have been accustomed, or to that worn by others, 
provided it be suitable to his circumstances, and the 
society with which he associates—they did not dis- 
