- end_line
- 9651
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:25.203Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 9598
- text
- shooting down a noble cock that was crowing what proved to be his own
funeral dirge, on the limb of an adjoining tree. ‘Taboo’, shrieked the
affrighted savages. ‘Oh, hang your taboo,’ says the nautical sportsman;
‘talk taboo to the marines’; and bang went the piece again, and down
came another victim. At this the natives ran scampering through the
groves, horror-struck at the enormity of the act.
All that afternoon the rocky sides of the valley rang with successive
reports, and the superb plumage of many a beautiful fowl was ruffled by
the fatal bullet. Had it not been that the French admiral, with a large
party, was then in the glen, I have no doubt that the natives, although
their tribe was small and dispirited, would have inflicted summary
vengeance upon the man who thus outraged their most sacred institutions;
as it was, they contrived to annoy him not a little.
Thirsting with his exertions, the skipper directed his steps to
a stream; but the savages, who had followed at a little distance,
perceiving his object, rushed towards him and forced him away from its
bank--his lips would have polluted it. Wearied at last, he sought to
enter a house that he might rest for a while on the mats; its inmates
gathered tumultuously about the door and denied him admittance. He
coaxed and blustered by turns, but in vain; the natives were neither
to be intimidated nor appeased, and as a final resort he was obliged
to call together his boat’s crew, and pull away from what he termed the
most infernal place he ever stepped upon.
Lucky was it for him and for us that we were not honoured on our
departure by a salute of stones from the hands of the exasperated Tiors.
In this way, on the neighbouring island of Ropo, were killed, but a few
weeks previously, and for a nearly similar offence, the master and three
of the crew of the K---.
I cannot determine with anything approaching to certainty, what power
it is that imposes the taboo. When I consider the slight disparity
of condition among the islanders--the very limited and inconsiderable
prerogatives of the king and chiefs--and the loose and indefinite
functions of the priesthood, most of whom were hardly to be
distinguished from the rest of their countrymen, I am wholly at a loss
where to look for the authority which regulates this potent institution.
It is imposed upon something today, and withdrawn tomorrow; while its
operations in other cases are perpetual. Sometimes its restrictions only
affect a single individual--sometimes a particular family--sometimes
a whole tribe; and in a few instances they extend not merely over the
various clans on a single island, but over all the inhabitants of an
entire group. In illustration of this latter peculiarity, I may cite
the law which forbids a female to enter a canoe--a prohibition which
prevails upon all the northern Marquesas Islands.
The word itself (taboo) is used in more than one signification. It
is sometimes used by a parent to his child, when in the exercise
of parental authority he forbids it to perform a particular action.
Anything opposed to the ordinary customs of the islanders, although not
expressly prohibited, is said to be ‘taboo’.
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