404 POLYNESIAN' RESEARCHES. 
It may perhaps be supposed, by those who are 
unacquainted with the circumstances, that the 
wives of the Missionaries have not acted judi¬ 
ciously in introducing and cherishing a desire for 
dress. It may be thought that it has a ten¬ 
dency to engender pride, occupy the head and 
the hands about trifles, to the neglect of more 
important matters, inducing 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 improve¬ 
ment 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 their 
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 
renunciation 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 
