.

A fact which I soon afterwards learned augmented my apprehension. The
whole system of tattooing was, I found, connected with their religion; and
it was evident, therefore, that they were resolved to make a convert of
me.

In the decoration of the chiefs, it seems to be necessary to exercise the
most elaborate pencilling; while some of the inferior natives looked as if
they had been daubed over indiscriminately with a house-painter's brush. I
remember one fellow who prided himself hugely upon a great oblong patch,
placed high upon his back, and who always reminded me of a man with a
blister of Spanish flies stuck between his shoulders. Another whom I
frequently met had the hollow of his eyes tattooed in two regular squares,
and his visual organs being remarkably brilliant, they gleamed forth from
out this setting like a couple of diamonds inserted in ebony.

Although convinced that tattooing was a religious observance, still the
nature of the connection between it and the superstitious idolatry of the
people was a point upon which I could never obtain any information. Like
the still more important system of the "Taboo," it always appeared
inexplicable to me.

There is a marked similarity, almost an identity, between the religious
institutions of most of the Polynesian islands, and in all exists the
mysterious "Taboo," restricted in its uses to a greater or less extent. So
strange and complex in its arrangements is this remarkable system, that I
have in several cases met with individuals who, after residing for years
among the islands in the Pacific, and acquiring a considerable knowledge
of the language, have nevertheless been altogether unable to give any
satisfactory account of its operations. Situated as I was in the Typee
valley, I perceived every hour the effects of this all-controlling power,
without in the least comprehending it. Those effects were, indeed,
wide-spread and universal, pervading the most important as well as the
minutest transactions of life. The savage, in short, lives in the
continual observance of its dictates, which guide and control every action
of his being.

For several days after entering the valley I had been saluted at least
fifty times in the twenty-four hours with the talismanic word "Taboo"
shrieked in my ears, at some gross violation of its provisions, of which I
had unconsciously been guilty. The day after our arrival I happened to
hand some tobacco to Toby over the head of a