so that, in preparing the ensuing chapters for the press, precision with respect
to dates would have been impossible; and every occurrence has been put down from
simple recollection. The frequency, however, with which these incidents have
been verbally related, has tended to stamp them upon the memory.
    Although it is believed that one or two imperfect Polynesian vocabularies
have been published, none of the Tahitian dialect has as yet appeared. At any
rate, the author has had access to none whatever. In the use of the native
words, therefore, he has been mostly governed by the bare recollection of
sounds.
    Upon several points connected with the history and ancient customs of
Tahiti, collateral information has been obtained from the oldest books of South
Sea voyages, and also from the Polynesian Researches of Ellis.
    The title of the work - Omoo - is borrowed from the dialect of the Marquesas
Islands, where, among other uses, the word signifies a rover, or rather, a
person wandering from one island to another, like some of the natives known
among their countrymen as Taboo kannakers.
    In no respect does the author make pretensions to philosophic research. In a
familiar way, he has merely described what he has seen; and if reflections are
occasionally indulged in, they are spontaneous, and such as would very probably
suggest themselves to the most casual observer.
 
NEW YORK,
    January 28, 1847.

                          Adventures in the South Seas

 

                                  Introduction

In the summer of 1842, the author of this narrative, as a sailor before the
mast, visited the Marquesas Islands in an American South Seaman. At the island
of Nukuheva he left his vessel, which afterward sailed without him. Wandering in
the interior, he came upon the valley of Typee, inhabited by a primitive tribe
of savages, from which valley a fellow-sailor who accompanied him soon afterward
effected his escape. The author, however, was detained in an indulgent captivity
for about the space of four months; at the end of which period, he escaped in a
boat which visited the bay.
    This boat belonged to a vessel in need of men, which had recently touched at
a neighbouring harbour of the same island, where the captain had been informed
of the author's detention in Typee. Desirous of adding to his crew, he sailed
round thither, and hove to off the mouth of the bay. As the Typees were
considered hostile, the boat, manned by Taboo natives from the other harbour,
was then sent in, with an interpreter at their head, to procure the author's
release. This was finally accomplished, though not without peril