Note 327 — Chapter XVI · THE ORIGINS OF SELF-DECORATION

Cf. Tetens and Kubary in Journal des Museum Godeffroy, ii. p. 16 (Yap); Kubary, l.c. viii. p. 133 (Pelew Islands: Gems and bracelets as badges and class distinctions); Angas, Polynesia, pp. 293, 297 (Tahiti: different ranks among the Areoi distinguished by different tattooings); Schmeltz, Ethnol. Abtheilung des Museum Godeffroy, pp. 182 sq., 259-261, 478 sq. (Fiji; Marquesas Islands; Samoa: tattooings as connected with distinctions of rank). These facts are, as Schmeltz remarks, in direct opposition to the statements of Finsch in Verhandlungen d. Berlin Anthropol. Gesellschaft, 1879, p. 414.—Lütke does not himself think that the richness of tattoo patterns on the Caroline Islands stands in any relation to the rank of the tattooed individual; but he admits that some members of his expedition had got such an impression, Voyage, i. pp. 359, 360. The belief of the Fijians, to which so curious an analogy has been found among the Eskimos (Lubbock, Prehist. Times, p. 565; Hall, Arctic Researches, p. 570), that only tattooed people are entitled to happiness after death may perhaps be connected with notions of an Elysium reserved for individuals of a certain rank. Cf. also Ymer, iv. p. 317, on the views of the Pelew islanders as to nose ornaments as a condition for entering the realm of spirits, and Finsch, Ethnol. Erfahrungen, p. 316, quoting, with reservation, Kirby on a Gilbert’s Island paradise, open only to the spirits of tattooed people. With regard to the African tribes we are unable to adduce any unambiguous instances of scars as denoting rank and status. See, however, Ellis, Eẃe-speaking Peoples, p. 146.