Tahiti's Ancient

Hospitality

Dies Under a Heterogeneous Civilisation

From Our Own Correspondent.

Papeete, Dec. 11.

ERHAPS the most cherished memory carried away by visitors to Tahiti in the old days, was the hospitality be stowed in unstinted measure by the natives of the island.

Maximo Rodriguez, journeying around Tahiti in 1775, records in his diary:—“lt dawned clear, and with wind from S., fresh. I started for the district of Papara, which adjoins that of Atehuru. I pro ceed on until the middle of the night, with the object of getting close up to a bad stretch of water that lies about the middle of said district, where the Ari'i resides. He received me with much kind ness, and gave me a nice house to lodge in, and I passed the night without inci dent.”

The translator, Doctor B. Glanvill Corney, adds this footnote:—“l take this opportunity of recording the pleasure and satisfaction I experienced 133 years after Maximo, in accepting hospitality from the Ari’i of Papara, chief of the Teva and President of the District Coun cil, who received me with much kindness, and gave me a nice house to lodge in, where I passed several nights without in cident, other than of a felicitous kind, and enjoyed many interesting and in structive conversations with my host on the subject of Maximo and his wander ings, and his native contemporaries.”

One could have hoped that Tahitian hospitality had survived, with all the gracious charm of spirit and usage to which these two bear witness. But, about twenty years ago, new Wallaces and Captain Cooks came to re-dlscover the South Seas. Following them came the mis sionaries of the New Civilisation—authors, writers, scriveners, doctors of science, doctors of tropical medicine, professors, anthropologists, cinema actors, artists, painters, rovers, adventurers, treasure hunters, sun-bathers, refugees from pro hibition, rum runners, poets, dreamers— a grave and reverend company, some times, but always a trifle too heterogen eous for the Polynesian mind to compre hend.

During subsequent years many things have happened to convince the Tahitian of the wisdom of his European brother in regarding his house as his castle.

Gradually, the portcullis lias been dropped and the drawbridge elevated in Tahitian homes, and the wayfarer no longer hears the hearty “Haere Mai, Tamaa” (come and dine with us) as he passes through the countryside.