Nineteen years in Polynesia: missionary life, travels, and researches in the islands of the Pacific . , run through betweenthe tied hands and feet, and laying him down beforethe family or village against whom he had trans-gressed, as if he were a pig to be killed and cooked;compelling the culprit to sit naked for hours in thebroiling sun ; to be hung up by the heels; or to beatthe head with stones till the face was covered withblood ; or to play at hand-ball with the prickly sea-urchin ; or to take five bites of a pungent root, whichwas like filling the mouth five times with cayennepepper. It
Nineteen years in Polynesia: missionary life, travels, and researches in the islands of the Pacific . , run through betweenthe tied hands and feet, and laying him down beforethe family or village against whom he had trans-gressed, as if he were a pig to be killed and cooked;compelling the culprit to sit naked for hours in thebroiling sun ; to be hung up by the heels; or to beatthe head with stones till the face was covered withblood ; or to play at hand-ball with the prickly sea-urchin ; or to take five bites of a pungent root, whichwas like filling the mouth five times with cayennepepper. It was considered cowardly to shrink fromthe punishment on which the village court mightdecide, and so the young man would go boldly for-ward, sit down before the chiefs, bite the root fivetimes, get up and walk away with his mouth onfire. But these barbarous penalties are done awaywith, and fines now are generally levied in foodand property. In cases of murder and adultery,however, the old law of indiscriminate revenge isstill at times carried out. Should two families in a village quarrel, and wish. GOVERNMENT AND LAWS. 287 to fight, the other heads of families and the chiefstep in and forbid; and it is at the peril of eitherparty to carry on the strife, contrary to the decidedvoice of pnblic opinion. These village commnnities, of from two to fivehundred people, consider themselves perfectly dis-tinct from each other, quite independent, and atliberty to act as they please on their own ground,and in their own affairs. Then, again, these villages, in numbers of eightor ten, unite by common consent, and form a dis-trict, or state, for mutual protection. Some parti-cular village is known as the capital of the district;and it was common of old to have a higher chiefthan any of the rest, as the head of that village, andwho bore the title of King. Just as in the individualvillages, the chief and heads of families unite insuppressing strife when two parties quarrel; so itis in the event
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade186, booksubjectmissions, bookyear1861
