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- 8795
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- 2026-01-30T20:48:25.203Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 8733
- text
- when sought for. Here is a sperm-whale tooth, graven all over with
cunning devices: it is the property of Karluna; it is the most precious
of the damsel’s ornaments. In her estimation its price is far above
rubies--and yet there hangs the dental jewel by its cord of braided
bark, in the girl’s house, which is far back in the valley; the door is
left open, and all the inmates have gone off to bathe in the stream.*
*The strict honesty which the inhabitants of nearly all the Polynesian
Islands manifest toward each other, is in striking contrast with the
thieving propensities some of them evince in their intercourse with
foreigners. It would almost seem that, according to their peculiar code
of morals, the pilfering of a hatchet or a wrought nail from a European,
is looked upon as a praiseworthy action. Or rather, it may be presumed,
that bearing in mind the wholesale forays made upon them by their
nautical visitors, they consider the property of the latter as a fair
object of reprisal. This consideration, while it serves to reconcile an
apparent contradiction in the moral character of the islanders, should
in some measure alter that low opinion of it which the reader of South
Sea voyages is too apt to form.
So much for the respect in which ‘personal property’ is held in Typee;
how secure an investment of ‘real property’ may be, I cannot take upon
me to say. Whether the land of the valley was the joint property of its
inhabitants, or whether it was parcelled out among a certain number of
landed proprietors who allowed everybody to ‘squat’ and ‘poach’ as
much as he or she pleased, I never could ascertain. At any rate, musty
parchments and title-deeds there were none on the island; and I am half
inclined to believe that its inhabitants hold their broad valleys in fee
simple from Nature herself; to have and to hold, so long as grass grows
and water runs; or until their French visitors, by a summary mode of
conveyancing, shall appropriate them to their own benefit and behoof.
Yesterday I saw Kory-Kory hie him away, armed with a long pole, with
which, standing on the ground, he knocked down the fruit from the
topmost boughs of the trees, and brought them home in his basket of
cocoanut leaves. Today I see an islander, whom I know to reside in a
distant part of the valley, doing the self-same thing. On the sloping
bank of the stream are a number of banana-trees I have often seen a
score or two of young people making a merry foray on the great golden
clusters, and bearing them off, one after another, to different parts
of the vale, shouting and trampling as they went. No churlish old
curmudgeon could have been the owner of that grove of bread-fruit trees,
or of these gloriously yellow bunches of bananas.
From what I have said it will be perceived that there is a vast
difference between ‘personal property’ and ‘real estate’ in the valley
of Typee. Some individuals, of course, are more wealthy than others.
For example, the ridge-pole of Marheyo’s house bends under the weight of
many a huge packet of tappa; his long couch is laid with mats placed one
upon the other seven deep. Outside, Tinor has ranged along in her
bamboo cupboard--or whatever the place may be called--a goodly array of
calabashes and wooden trenchers. Now, the house just beyond the grove,
and next to Marheyo’s, occupied by Ruaruga, is not quite so well
furnished. There are only three moderate-sized packages swinging
overhead: there are only two layers of mats beneath; and the calabashes
and trenchers are not so numerous, nor so tastefully stained and carved.
But then, Ruaruga has a house--not so pretty a one, to be sure--but just
as commodious as Marheyo’s; and, I suppose, if he wished to vie with
his neighbour’s establishment, he could do so with very little trouble.
These, in short, constituted the chief differences perceivable in the
relative wealth of the people in Typee.
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