A chapter of the Tahitian Bible was now read; a text selected; and the
sermon began. It was listened to with more attention than I had
anticipated.
Having been informed, from various sources, that the discourses of the
missionaries, being calculated to engage the attention of their
simple auditors, were, naturally enough, of a rather amusing
description to strangers; in short, that they had much to say about
steamboats, lord mayor's coaches, and the way fires are put out in
London, I had taken care to provide myself with a good interpreter, in
the person of an intelligent Hawaiian sailor, whose acquaintance I
had made.
"Now, Jack," said I, before entering, "hear every word, and tell me
what you can as the missionary goes on."
Jack's was not, perhaps, a critical version of the discourse; and at
the time, I took no notes of what he said. Nevertheless, I will here
venture to give what I remember of it; and, as far as possible, in
Jack's phraseology, so as to lose nothing by a double translation.
"Good friends, I glad to see you; and I very well like to have some
talk with you to-day. Good friends, very bad times in Tahiti; it make
me weep. Pomaree is gone - the island no more yours, but the Wee-wees'
(French). Wicked priests here, too; and wicked idols in woman's
clothes, and brass chains.
"Good friends, no you speak, or look at them - but I know you won't
- they belong to a set of robbers - the wicked Wee-wees. Soon these
bad men be made to go very quick. Beretanee ships of thunder come and
away they go. But no more 'bout this now. I speak more by by.
"Good friends, many whale-ships here now; and many bad men come in
'em. No good sailors living - that you know very well. They come here,
'cause so bad they no keep 'em home.
"My good little girls, no run after sailors - no go where they go; they
harm you. Where they come from, no good people talk to 'em - just like
dogs. Here, they talk to Pomaree, and drink arva with great Poofai.
"Good friends, this very small island, but very wicked, and very poor;
these two go together. Why Beretanee so great? Because that island
good island, and send mickonaree to poor kannaka In Beretanee, every
man rich: plenty things to buy; and plenty things to sell. Houses
bigger than Pomaree's, and more grand. Everybody, too, ride about in
coaches, bigger than hers; and wear fine tappa every day. (Several
luxurious appliances of civilization were here enumerated, and
described.)
"Good friends, little to eat left at my house. Schooner from Sydney no
bring bag of flour: and kannaka no bring pig and fruit enough.
Mickonaree do great deal for kannaka; kannaka do little for
mickonaree. So, good friends, weave plenty of cocoa-nut baskets, fill
'em, and bring 'em to-morrow."
Such was the substance of great part of this discourse; and, whatever
may be thought of it, it was specially adapted to the minds of the
islanders: who are susceptible to no impressions, except from things
palpable, or novel and striking. To them, a dry sermon would be dry
indeed.
The Tahitians can hardly ever be said to reflect: they are all
impulse; and so, instead of expounding dogmas, the missionaries give
them the large type, pleasing cuts, and short and easy lessons of the
primer. Hence, anything like a permanent religious impression is
seldom or never produced.
In fact, there is, perhaps, no race upon earth, less disposed, by
nature, to the monitions of Christianity, than the people of the
South Seas. And this assertion is made with full knowledge of what is
called the "Great Revival at the Sandwich Islands," about the year
1836; when several thousands were, in the course of a few weeks,
admitted into the bosom of the Church. But this result was brought
about by no sober moral convictions; as an almost instantaneous
relapse into every kind of licentiousness soon after testified. It
was the legitimate effect of a morbid feeling, engendered by the
sense of severe physical wants, preying upon minds excessively prone
to superstition; and, by fanatical preaching, inflamed into the belief
that the gods of the missionaries were taking vengeance upon the
wickedness of the land.
It is a noteworthy fact that those very traits in the Tahitians, which
induced the London Missionary Society to regard them as the most
promising subjects for conversion, and which led, moreover, to the
selection of their island as the very first field for missionary
labour, eventually proved the most serious obstruction. An air of
softness in their manners, great apparent ingenuousness and docility,
at first misled; but these were the mere accompaniments of an
indolence, bodily and mental; a constitutional voluptuousness; and an
aversion to the least restraint; which, however fitted for the
luxurious state of nature, in the tropics, are the greatest possible
hindrances to the strict moralities of Christianity.
Added to all this is a quality inherent in Polynesians; and more akin
to hypocrisy than anything else. It leads them to assume the most
passionate interest in matters for which they really feel little or
none whatever; but in which, those whose power they dread, or whose
favour they court, they believe to be at all affected. Thus, in their
heathen state, the Sandwich Islanders actually knocked out their
teeth, tore their hair, and mangled their bodies with shells, to
testify their inconsolable grief at the demise of a high chief, or
member of the royal family. And yet, Vancouver relates that, on such
an occasion, upon which he happened to be present, those apparently
the most abandoned to their feelings, immediately assumed the utmost
light-heartedness on receiving the present of a penny whistle, or a
Dutch looking-glass.
