Within strictly native society the old laws and practices were

harsh, but not without a certain stamp of high-mindedness.

Stealthy adultery was punished with death; open elopement was

properly considered virtue in comparison, and compounded for a fine

in land. The male adulterer alone seems to have been punished. It

is correct manners for a jealous man to hang himself; a jealous

woman has a different remedy--she bites her rival. Ten or twenty

years ago it was a capital offence to raise a woman's ridi; to this

day it is still punished with a heavy fine; and the garment itself

is still symbolically sacred. Suppose a piece of land to be

disputed in Butaritari, the claimant who shall first hang a ridi on

the tapu-post has gained his cause, since no one can remove or

touch it but himself.

The ridi was the badge not of the woman but the wife, the mark not

of her sex but of her station. It was the collar on the slave's

neck, the brand on merchandise. The adulterous woman seems to have

been spared; were the husband offended, it would be a poor

consolation to send his draught cattle to the shambles. Karaiti,

to this day, calls his eight wives 'his horses,' some trader having

explained to him the employment of these animals on farms; and

Nanteitei hired out his wives to do mason-work. Husbands, at least

when of high rank, had the power of life and death; even whites

seem to have possessed it; and their wives, when they had

transgressed beyond forgiveness, made haste to pronounce the

formula of deprecation--I KANA KIM. This form of words had so much

<<BackPagesTo menuNext>>