ABSTRACT
The function of the systems of violence is more comfortably understood in the library than perhaps its purposes could be understood by its victims. The violence Marquesans showed to outsiders was different from the violence they showed to themselves. They stood outside both the systems of obligation and of right, and in so far as they controlled their relations with te enata violently with their guns were subject to the same violence. David Porter's visit coincided with the development of the sandalwood trade in the Marquesas. In the Marquesas there was no overthrow of the tapu system in one dramatic gesture as in Hawaii, and the tribal groupings were too divided in their mutual hostility to follow the example of only one haka'iki if he were converted to Christianity. The Marquesans who lived in more isolated valleys were rarely visited by ships except the sandal-wooders, and probably felt they had no other means of acquiring these treasures than by violence.
