THE MARQUESANS 
313 
Missionaries, and voyagers by whom they have 
been visited, seems to be not less decisive than 
distressing. Krusenstern, in his voyage round 
the world, touched at Nuuhiva, on his way to 
Japan. He obtained much information from 
Roberts, an Englishman, who had resided some 
time on the island, and states that in times of 
famine the men butcher their wives, and children, 
and aged parents. They bake and stew their 
flesh, and devour it with the greatest satisfaction. 
Even the tender-looking female will join, if per¬ 
mitted, in the horrid repast.* Most recent visitors 
seem to think the population is diminishing, 
and both the physical and moral character of the 
people deteriorating. The population is, however, 
still greater, in all probability, than that of the 
Georgian and Society Islands. 
The dress of the Marquesans is usually made 
with the inner bark of the paper-mulberry, and 
consists of a broad bandage worn round the 
waist, and a large square piece like a shawl cast 
loosely over the upper part of the body, tied on a 
knot on one shoulder, and reaching below the 
knees. They wear very showy breast-plates, adorned 
with hard red berries of the abrus precatorious , 
called by them periperio, and their helmets are 
often ingenious. Their canoes and dwellings are 
in many respects similar, though inferior, to those 
of the westward islands. Their system of religion, 
with its appendages of maraes, priests, sorcery, 
divination, and sacrifices, is, with slight variation, 
a part of that which prevails throughout the Poly¬ 
nesian tribes, excepting that the human victims 
are not buried under the pavement of the temple, 
or suspended in a sacred tree, but are eaten within 
* Krusenstern. 
