Читать книгу Men Against the Sea – Book Set. The Greatest Maritime Adventure Novels: The Bounty Trilogy, Lost Island, The Hurricane, Botany Bay, The Far Lands, Tales of the South Seas… онлайн

279 страница из 953

As for human sacrifice, the ceremony was rarely performed, and then only on the altar of Oro, god of war. The victim was taken unaware and killed mercifully, by a sudden blow from behind, and he was without exception a man who, in the opinion of the chiefs, deserved death for the public good. In a land where courts, judges, and executioners were unknown, the prospect of being sacrificed to the god of war restrained many a man from crimes against society.

The people of Tahiti were fortunate in many respects—the climate, the fertility of their island, and the abundance of food to be obtained with little effort; yet they were still more fortunate, perhaps, in their lack of money or any other general medium of exchange. Hogs, mats, or bark cloth might be given as a reward for building a house or the tattooing of a young chief, but such property was perishable, and considered a gift rather than an exchange. Since there was nothing that a miser might hoard, avarice, that most contemptible of human failings, was unknown, and there was little incentive to greed. To be accused of meanness was dreaded by chief and commoner alike, for a mean man was considered an object of ridicule. By our introduction of iron, and inculcation of the principles of barter, there is no doubt that we have worked the Indians infinite harm.