PREVAILING COMPLEXION. 
83 
their rulers. Hence, in one of their songs, the fol¬ 
lowing sentiments are inculcated “ If black be 
the complexion of the mother, the son will sound 
the conch-shell; if vigorous and strong the mother, 
the son will be a governor.” 
The prevailing colour of the natives is an olive, a 
bronze, or a reddish brown—equally removed from 
the jet-black of the African and the Asiatic, the 
yellow of the Malay, and the red or copper-colour 
of the aboriginal American, frequently presenting 
a kind of medium between the two latter colours. 
Considerable variety, nevertheless, prevails in the 
complexion of the population of the same island, 
and as great a diversity among the inhabitants of 
different islands. The natives of the Paliser or 
Pearl Islands, a short distance to the eastward of 
Tahiti, are darker than the inhabitants of the Geor¬ 
gian group. It is not, however, a blacker hue that 
their skin presents, but a darker red or brown. The 
natives of Maniaa, or Mangeea, one of the Harvey 
cluster, and some of the inhabitants of Rurutu, and 
the neighbourhood to the south of Tahiti, desig¬ 
nated by Malte Brun, “ the Austral Islands,” and 
the majority of the reigning family in Raiatea, are 
not darker than the inhabitants of some parts of 
southern Europe. 
At the time of their birth, the complexion of 
Tahitian infants is but little if any darker than that 
of European children, and the skin only assumes 
the bronze or brown hue as they grow up under 
repeated or constant exposure to the sun. Those 
parts of the body that are most covered, even with 
their loose draperies of native cloth, are, through 
every period of life, much lighter coloured than 
those that are exposed; and, notwithstanding the 
dark tint with which the climate appears to dye 
g 2 
