Typee: A Romance of the South Seas

by Herman Melville

  Some of the natives present at the Feast of Calabashes had displayed afew articles of European dress; disposed however, about their personsafter their own peculiar fashion. Among these I perceived two pieces ofcotton-cloth which poor Toby and myself had bestowed upon our youthfulguides the afternoon we entered the valley. They were evidently reservedfor gala days; and during those of the festival they rendered the youngislanders who wore them very distinguished characters. The small numberwho were similarly adorned, and the great value they appeared to placeupon the most common and most trivial articles, furnished ample evidenceof the very restricted intercourse they held with vessels touching atthe island. A few cotton handkerchiefs, of a gay pattern, tied about theneck, and suffered to fall over the shoulder; strips of fanciful calico,swathed about the loins, were nearly all I saw.

  Indeed, throughout the valley, there were few things of any kind tobe seen of European origin. All I ever saw, besides the articles justalluded to, were the six muskets preserved in the Ti, and three or foursimilar implements of warfare hung up in other houses; some smallcanvas bags, partly filled with bullets and powder, and half a dozen oldhatchet-heads, with the edges blunted and battered to such a degreeas to render them utterly useless. These last seemed to be regarded asnearly worthless by the natives; and several times they held up, oneof them before me, and throwing it aside with a gesture of disgust,manifested their contempt for anything that could so soon becomeunserviceable.

  But the muskets, the powder, and the bullets were held in mostextravagant esteem. The former, from their great age and thepeculiarities they exhibited, were well worthy a place in anyantiquarian's armoury. I remember in particular one that hung in theTi, and which Mehevi--supposing as a matter of course that I was able torepair it--had put into my hands for that purpose. It was one of thoseclumsy, old-fashioned, English pieces known generally as Tower Hillmuskets, and, for aught I know, might have been left on the island byWallace, Carteret, Cook, or Vancouver. The stock was half rotten andworm-eaten; the lock was as rusty and about as well adapted to itsostensible purpose as an old door-hinge; the threading of the screwsabout the trigger was completely worn away; while the barrel shook inthe wood. Such was the weapon the chief desired me to restore to itsoriginal condition. As I did not possess the accomplishments of agunsmith, and was likewise destitute of the necessary tools, I wasreluctantly obliged to signify my inability to perform the task. At thisunexpected communication Mehevi regarded me, for a moment, as if he halfsuspected I was some inferior sort of white man, who after all did notknow much more than a Typee. However, after a most laboured explanationof the matter, I succeeded in making him understand the extremedifficulty of the task. Scarcely satisfied with my apologies, however,he marched off with the superannuated musket in something of a huff, asif he would no longer expose it to the indignity of being manipulated bysuch unskilful fingers.

  During the festival I had not failed to remark the simplicity of manner,the freedom from all restraint, and, to certain degree, the equalityof condition manifested by the natives in general. No one appeared toassume any arrogant pretensions. There was little more than a slightdifference in costume to distinguish the chiefs from the other natives.All appeared to mix together freely, and without any reserve; althoughI noticed that the wishes of a chief, even when delivered in the mildesttone, received the same immediate obedience which elsewhere would havebeen only accorded to a peremptory command. What may be the extentof the authority of the chiefs over the rest of the tribe, I will notventure to assert; but from all I saw during my stay in the valley, Iwas induced to believe that in matters concerning the general welfareit was very limited. The required degree of deference towards them,however, was willingly and cheerfully yielded; and as all authority istransmitted from father to son, I have no doubt that one of the effectshere, as elsewhere, of high birth, is to induce respect and obedience.

  The civil institutions of the Marquesas Islands appear to be in this,as in other respects, directly the reverse of those of the Tahitian andHawaiian groups, where the original power of the king and chiefs was farmore despotic than that of any tyrant in civilized countries. At Tahitiit used to be death for one of the inferior orders to approach, withoutpermission, under the shadow, of the king's house; or to fail in payingthe customary reverence when food destined for the king was borne pastthem by his messengers. At the Sandwich Islands, Kaahumanu, the giganticold dowager queen--a woman of nearly four hundred pounds weight, andwho is said to be still living at Mowee--was accustomed, in some of herterrific gusts of temper, to snatch up an ordinary sized man who hadoffended her, and snap his spine across her knee. Incredible as thismay seem, it is a fact. While at Lahainaluna--the residence of thismonstrous Jezebel--a humpbacked wretch was pointed out to me, who, sometwenty-five years previously, had had the vertebrae of his backbone veryseriously discomposed by his gentle mistress.

  The particular grades of rank existing among the chiefs of Typee, Icould not in all cases determine. Previous to the Feast of CalabashesI had been puzzled what particular station to assign to Mehevi. But theimportant part he took upon that occasion convinced me that he had nosuperior among the inhabitants of the valley. I had invariably noticed acertain degree of deference paid to him by all with whom I had ever seenhim brought in contact; but when I remembered that my wanderings hadbeen confined to a limited portion of the valley, and that towardsthe sea a number of distinguished chiefs resided, some of whom hadseparately visited me at Marheyo's house, and whom, until the Festival,I had never seen in the company of Mehevi, I felt disposed to believethat his rank after all might not be particularly elevated.

  The revels, however, had brought together all the warriors whom I hadseen individually and in groups at different times and places. Amongthem Mehevi moved with an easy air of superiority which was not to bemistaken; and he whom I had only looked at as the hospitable host of theTi, and one of the military leaders of the tribe, now assumed in my eyesthe dignity of royal station. His striking costume, no less than hisnaturally commanding figure, seemed indeed to give him pre-eminence overthe rest. The towering helmet of feathers that he wore raised himin height above all who surrounded him; and though some others weresimilarly adorned, the length and luxuriance of their plumes wereinferior to his.

  Mehevi was in fact the greatest of the chiefs--the head of his clan--thesovereign of the valley; and the simplicity of the social institutionsof the people could not have been more completely proved than by thefact, that after having been several weeks in the valley, and almost indaily intercourse with Mehevi, I should have remained until the time ofthe festival ignorant of his regal character. But a new light had nowbroken in upon me. The Ti was the palace--and Mehevi the king. Both theone and the other of a most simple and patriarchal nature: it must beallowed, and wholly unattended by the ceremonious pomp which usuallysurrounds the purple.

  After having made this discovery I could not avoid congratulating myselfthat Mehevi had from the first taken me as it were under his royalprotection, and that he still continued to entertain for me the warmestregard, as far at least as I was enabled to judge from appearances. Forthe future I determined to pay most assiduous court to him, hoping thateventually through his kindness I might obtain my liberty.