rry out his
will. Even the land was, in Hawaii and other Polynesian communities,
under the control of the chief, to be redistributed whenever a new chief
came into power. The taboo system thus became the means for economic
distribution, for the control of the relation between the sexes, and for
the preservation of the dignity of the chief class. As such it
constituted as powerful an instrument for the control of the labor and
wealth of a community and the consequent enjoyment of personal ease and
luxury as was ever put into the hands of an organized upper class. It
profoundly influenced class distinctions, encouraged exclusiveness and
the separation of the upper ranks of society from the lower.[8]

To act as intermediary with his powerful line of ancestors and perform
all the ceremonials befitting the rank to which he has attained, the
chief employs a priesthood, whose orders and offices are also graded
according to the rank into which the priest is born and the patronage he
is able to secure for himself.[9] Even though the priest may be, when
inspired by his god, for the time being treated like a god and given
divine honors, as soon as the possession leaves him he returns to his
old rank in the community.[10] Since chief and priest base their
pretensions upon the same divine authority, each supports the other,
often the one office including the other;[11] the sacerdotal influence
is, therefore, while it acts as a check upon the chief, on the whole
aristocratic.

The priest represented in Polynesian society what we may call the
professional class in our own. Besides conducting religious ceremonials,
he consulted the gods on matters of administration and state policy,
read the omens, understood medicine, guarded the genealogies and the
ancient lore, often acted as panegyrist and debater for the chief. All
these powers were his in so far as he was directly inspired by the god
who spoke through him as medium to the people.[12]

_Footnotes to Section II, 6: The story as a reflection of aristocratic
social life_

[Footnote 1: J.A. Macculloch (in Childhood of Fiction, p. 2) says,
comparing the literary ability of primitive people: "Those who possess
the most elaborate and imaginative tales are the Red Indians and
Polynesians."]

[Footnote 2: Moerenhout, II, 4, 265.]

[Footnote 3: Gracia (p. 47) says that the taboo consists in the
interdict from touching some food or object which, has been dedicated to
a god. The c