“It was the whole code,” said he, “and when the French broke it down they destroyed us.  There is Teriieroo a Teriierooterai, whose family were chiefs of Punaauia for generations, shifted to Papenoo.  Each governor or admiral made these transfers here, as in the Marquesas and all the islands, with the primary object of lessening native cohesion, of Frenchifying us.  They ruined our highest aspirations and our manners.”

I had seen something of the same sweeping away of a code and the resultant evils and degradation in Japan.  When Bushido imposed itself on all above the herd, they had a sense of honor not surpassed by the people of any nation; but commerce, the destruction of the castes of samurai, heimin, and eta, the plunging of a military people into business and competition with Western cunning, and the lacquer of Christianity which had done little more than Occidentalize to a considerable degree a few thousands, without giving them the practice of the golden rule, or an appreciation of the Sermon on the Mount, had robbed the Japanese of an ancient code of morality and honor, and replaced it with nothing worth while—­an insatiable ambition to equal Occidental peoples and to conquer Oriental ones, and a thousand factories which killed women and children.

“We were divided into three distinct castes,” said Tetuanui.  “The Arii, or princes; Raatira, or small chiefs and simple landed proprietors; and the Manahune, or proletariat.  Alliances between Arii and Raatira made an intermediate class—­Eietoai.  There was also a caste of priests subject to the chief, their power all derived from him, but yet tending to become hereditary by the priests instructing their sons in the ceremonies and by taking care of the temple.”

“That’s the way the Aaron family got control of the Jewish priesthood,” I interpolated.  “They gave the people what they wanted, first a golden calf god, and then an ark, and they had charge of both.”

The chief frowned.  He was a confirmed Bible reader, and the Old Testament was so much like the Tahitian legends that he believed every word of it.

“The Arii,” he said, “were sacred and had miraculous strength and powers.  The food they touched was for others poison.  There was a head in each Arii family to whom the others were subject; he was often an infant, and almost always a young man, for the eldest son of the chief was chief and the father only regent.  This custom continued until comparatively recently in most families besides those of the Arii.  The Arii were the descendants of the last conquerors of these islands.  But their advent must have been ancient, for their power was uncontested, and their rights were so many, their duties so few, and the devotion of the people to them was so great, that only centuries could have established them so firmly.  Probably they came after the Raatira.  The Raatira were separated by too great a barrier to have assisted in the conquest.  No Raatira could become an Arii; no Arii a Raatira.  The latter were closer to the commoners, and paid the same respect to the Arii as did the Manahune.