§ 3. Social Life: the Sacred Kings

The people were divided into tribes or clans, each tracing descent in the male line from a common ancestor, and each possessing its own lands, which were inalienable. Exogamy, we are told, was the universal rule in the olden time; but when a tribe was split up in war, the defeated portion was treated as an alien tribe. Polygamy was very common, and was not restricted to chiefs. A man often had two or three sisters to wife at the same time. Distant cousins sometimes, though rarely, married each other; but in such cases they had to belong to the same generation; that is, they must be descended in the same degree, fourth, fifth, or even more remote, from the common ancestor. If misfortune or disease overtook couples linked even by so distant a relationship, the elders would declare that it was brought upon them by the anger of the clan-god. It was the duty of parents to teach their growing children whom they might lawfully marry, but their choice was extremely limited. Children as a rule belonged to the tribe or clan of their father, unless they were adopted into another. However, parents had it at their option to assign a child at birth either to the tribe of its father or to the tribe of its mother; this they did by pronouncing over the infant the name either of the father's or of the mother's god. Commonly the father had the preference; but occasionally, when the father's tribe was one from which human victims for sacrifice were regularly drawn, the mother would seek to save the child's life by having the name of her tribal god pronounced over it and so adopting it into her own tribe.[11] Circumcision in an imperfect form was practised in the Hervey Islands from time immemorial. It was usually performed on a youth about the age of sixteen. The operation was indispensable to marriage. No woman would knowingly marry an uncircumcised husband. The greatest insult that could be offered to a man was to accuse him of being uncircumcised. The rite is said to have been invented by the god Rongo in order to seduce the beautiful wife of his brother Tangaroa, and he enjoined the observance of circumcision upon his worshippers.[12] In Rarotonga it was customary to mould a child's head into a high shape by pressing the forehead and the back of the head between slabs of soft wood. This practice did not obtain on Mangaia nor, apparently, on any other island of the Hervey Group.[13]

In Rarotonga four ranks of society were recognised. These were the ariki, or king; the mataiapo, or governors of districts; the rangatira, or landowners; and the unga, or tenants. A man was accounted great according to the number of his kaingas or farms, which contained from one to five acres. These were let to tenants, who, like vassals under the feudal system, obeyed the orders of their superior, assisted him in erecting his house, in building his canoe, in making fishing-nets, and in other occupations, besides bringing him a certain portion of the produce of his lands.[14]

The kings were sacred men, being regarded as priests and mouthpieces of the great tutelary divinities.[15] In Mangaia they were the priests or mouthpieces of the great god Rongo. So sacred were their royal persons that no part of their body might be tattooed: they might not take part in dances or in actual warfare. Peace could not be proclaimed nor blood spilt lawfully without the consent of the king speaking in the name of the god Rongo. Quite distinct from, and subordinate to, the sacred king was the "lord of Mangaia," a warrior chief who gained his lordship by a decisive victory. He represented the civil power, while the king represented the spiritual power; but while the office of the king was hereditary, the office of the civil lord was not. It sometimes happened that the civil lord was at enmity with the king of his day. In that case the king would refuse to complete the ceremonies necessary for his formal investiture; life would remain unsafe; the soil could not be cultivated, and famine soon ensued. This state of turbulence and misery might last for years, till the obnoxious chief had been in his turn despatched, and a more agreeable successor appointed.[16] Thus the sacred king and the civil lord corresponded to the Tooitonga or sacred chief and the civil king of Tonga.[17]