Cohabitation In Cook Islands

Letter to the Editor.

METHINKS “Fair-Play,” of Niue (21/9/34) shelters either an Administrative or Eccle siastical pate under his nom-de-plume. But, be that as it may, he certainly writes a lot of non sense. In support of my contention may I give that somewhat worn shuttlecock “cohabitation” just one more belt across the controversial net?

In the first place, let me state, quite definitely, that the anti-cohabitation laws of the Cook Islands are not unanimously supported by the natives. Far from it. If that is the case in Niue, then Niue is very different from the other islands of this Group, and I am sorry to think that the original Adam has been so completely exorcised there as to make such a statement accurate. Wasn’t it Bernard Shaw who said “Heaven for holiness, but Hell for Company”?

“Fair-Play” is perfectly correct when he exoner ates the New Zealand Government from the re sponsibility for making these laws. They are, as he states, purely Local Ordinances, and, indeed, in several of the Cook Islands have never been passed by the Native Councils, presumably because the principle they embodied was not popular with the inhabitants. Thus it would seem that despite “Elders clamouring for action” and “the desire of the people that immorality be kept under control,” there nevertheless was, and is, in the same group another and less sin-conscious section.

In his recurrent mention of “the Elders,” “Fair- Play” betrays the weakness of his argument. Now, I am willing to wager that the Elders of Niud are also deacons of the Church; and at what time and in what country have not the Elders always objected to the younger generation kicking up its heels in the green pastures? Let a secret ballot

be taken—including the vote of the younger gene ration—and then tell us about that unanimity of opinion. Frankly, I don’t believe it does, or ever did, exist in Niue or elsewhere.

But if “Fair-Play” really expects us to take him seriously on the subject of Polynesian morals prior to the advent of the Missionaries . . . well, well, well.

Let me remind him of the authentic reports written by missionaries covering the period to which he alludes.

In Ellis’s “Polynesian Researches,” as well as in the Official Journal of the L.M.S. kept aboard the Duff (1796-8) sufficient evidence of the famous —or infamous —Areoi society of Tahiti will be found to convince the most cloudy intelligence of the lascivious and light-hearted tempo of those days; and among the late Dr. Wyatt Gill’s papers is a record of the coming, in 1820, of Goodenough, the first white man to land on Rarotonga. This ac count goes on to say “trouble grew up with that ship, partly due to the Rarotongan people who incited the white men to take food, coconuts, pigs and women. The women were another cause of trouble on account of their desire for the white men, and the white men were also to blame be cause they followed after the women and carried them on board the ship.”

A secular observer, J. R. Forster (Observations made on a Voyage Round the World, 1778) writes of the Tahitiians that “the unreserved behaviour of their females invite them powerfully to the enjoyments and pleasures of love. They begin very early to abandon themselves to the most libidinous scenes.”

I do not know the early history of Niue, but if the Niueans were any different from their neigh bours they must have been the exception which is erroneously supposed to prove every rule.

Once and for all let it be known that the anti cohabitation enactment is a direct descendant of the old days, when the London Missionary Society virtually ruled these Islands and foisted on to the people, through the Native Councils, their own code of ethics. After the Annexation, cer tain of these laws were retained —at the request of the mission-prodded Councils—and in a number of cases were subsequently ratified by Local Or dinances. Since then a not unnatural dislike of publicity has prevented anyone from making the first move for their repeal.

The question of whether or not such a law is beneficial calls for a discussion too lengthy for this article. Administered sanely and with dis cretion, as it is in Rarotonga, one might almost be inclined to think so, were it not for the fact that the degree of sanity and. discretion must vary with each individual administrator; and one is always liable to find that position occupied by men as narrow and fanatically bigoted as those who drafted the original enactment.

Having a strong aversion for nom-de-plumes or other verbal camouflage when dealing with local topics, j am, etc.,

R. Julian Dashwood.

Rarotonga, 1/11/34.