Arioi-Ancient And

Modern

Tahiti, July 12.

THE editor of one of our Tahitian church journals implores his readers to conduct themselves with decorum, during a forthcoming festival, and not to follow the practices of the Arioi “in that period when Tahiti slept in the darkness of heathendom.”

Now, inasmuch as the joyous old Arioi Society was cast so thoroughly into oblivion a century ago that its very name carries no significance to the average modern Tahitian, we suspect the editor’s arrows are really directed against the present-day Arioi, who inhabit that Tann hauserian Venusberg which has become the Olympus of the Lunatic Fringe, and who descended upon Tahiti during the notorious 1920 decade.

We are confirmed in this opinion by the editor’s censure of strong waters.

When the old Arioi Society was in its heyday, missionaries from communities in New England (where “Medford” rum was considered a “means of grace”), had not yet arrived at Hawaii, and Bacchus was not one of the gods of Polynesia.

The art of distilling strong waters came to us from Hawaii early in the nineteenth century; the honky-tonk, during the 1920 decade.

Notwithstanding the Rev. William Ellis’ description of the old Arioi as a sort of strolling players, who spent their days in travelling from island to island,

exhibiting their pantomimes, and spread ing moral contagion throughout society, research from other sources persuades us that the antique institution was really respectable, as compared with its modern counterpart.