The regular obligations of the inferior classes were to meet at certain times to hand to the chiefs presents, food, clothing or useful instruments, and they sought to exceed one another in generosity.  They met to build houses, to repair them, or to construct the rock foundations of houses, according to the importance of the chief, or Arii.  They built the canoes, made the nets, and did the fishing.  The sea was divided into properties, as was the land.  The Arii had the reefs where the fish most abounded.

“War was declared with religious ceremonies.  Sacrifices were the basis of these ceremonies, and a human victim the most efficacious.  The augurs examined the entrails, the auspices, much as did the pagans of old.  Certain priests had certain duties.  The Tahua Oripo, night runners, reported the movements of the enemy.  They were professional war spies, and they acquired a marvelous ability.  Sometimes they were able to lead their party so as to surprise the enemy and slaughter them, but usually there were preliminaries to war which warned the other side.  A herald was sent in the costume of a great warrior.  He was of high birth or famous for his fighting.  He delivered himself of his mission ceremoniously, and was never attacked.  Every locality had its war-chants, its songs of defiance.  Today only a few fragments survive.  Wars were waged mostly on account of the ambitions of princes, as to-day in Europe and Asia.  But the effort of Christianity to oust paganism in Tahiti brought about many sanguinary conflicts, and plainly God was with the missionaries, who caused the battles.  In 1815 the Battle of Feipi gave Tahiti to Pomare the Great, and to the Protestant ministers, who were his backers.  Over three hundred were killed.  A woman, the queen of the island of Huahine, commanded in the absence of Pomare.

“Sometimes after a battle the vanquished sent heralds to signify their yielding and to know the wish of the victor; they disbanded their troops, left their arms on the field, and the war was over.  Usually the defeated warriors were allowed to return home without more ado after their confession of failure, but when the rage was great, the victors, with furious cries, gave the signal of carnage, and slew all they met.  If the prince beaten escaped the first consequences of the rout, he was safe and lost only a portion of his territory, and in some wars only his prestige.  He remained respected, and his privileges were about the same as before.  The Arii were all of the same tribe, all related, and though they ruled different districts and valleys, and fought one another, they would not degrade one of their own family and rank.  Thus power remained in the same families, princes, chiefs, and priests, and only the Raatira and the Manahune, the bourgeoisie and the commoners, really suffered.

“We copied you in Europe,” I interposed.  “There the kings, kaisers, and czars took care not to lower the dignity of monarchy, and are virtually all related.  None of them ever deposed another of long enthroning, and none of them has been killed in a battle in centuries.”