Arioi

The canoes came in with their streamers flying. Feathers ran out from the fleet in the wind, drums and flutes sounded across the lagoon, and one of the hulls carried a small temporary marae, a sacred platform built for two gods who were travelling with the crews. Everyone on the beach knew what that meant. The arioi had arrived, and ‘Oro had come with them.

The arioi, written Areoi by the English who first met them, were not spirits. They were people: a society of men and women in the Society Islands, on Tahiti, Ra’iatea and the islands around them, bound to the service of the god ‘Oro. The historian Anne Salmond, in Aphrodite’s Island, her history of Tahiti’s first encounters with Europe, describes them as orators, priests, navigators, travelling performers, warriors and famed lovers. It is a long list, and every item on it is doing work. The myth attached to them is the story of how they came to exist, and in their own understanding they stood with one foot in the world of the gods.

That world began with ‘Oro himself. He was the son of the creator Ta’aroa and of Hina, and in the account Salmond follows he was conceived when Ta’aroa slept with Hina while she took the form of a breadfruit branch. ‘Oro grew into a god of fertility and of war, and he held the main gateways between the Po, the dark realm where gods and spirits lived, and the Ao, the bright world of human life. The arioi traced their order back to him.

The best known of his stories begins with a rainbow. ‘Oro came down along it to the earth, and his sisters went looking for a wife for him and found her on Borabora: a mortal woman named Vairaumati. The marriage called for gifts. ‘Oro’s two brothers, ‘Oro-tetefa and Uru-tetefa, supplied theirs in the most direct way available to a god, by turning themselves into a bunch of red feathers and a pregnant sow. A pig is a serious wedding present. Vairaumati bore ‘Oro a son who was destined to become a powerful chief, and ‘Oro raised her to the rank of a goddess. The two brothers who had made themselves into gifts became the patron gods of the arioi, which is why they had a marae of their own on the fleet.

Joining was not a matter of wanting to. Teuira Henry’s Ancient Tahiti, published by the Bishop Museum in 1928 and built on older material recorded by John Muggridge Orsmond, says that members were taken from all ranks of people, but that only well made, good-looking men and women were admitted, and that the two sexes held the same ranks and privileges. The society was graded like the island society around it, with paramount chiefs at its head and eight orders below.

Each grade wore its rank on the skin. A catalogue published by Auckland Museum, after the tattoo researcher Lars Krutak, runs from small marks in the hollow behind the knees, through a circle around the ankle, a single stripe down the left side, and light marks on the knuckles, wrists and shoulders, up to bars crossing both sides of the body. At the top stood the ‘avae parai, the black-legs, whose legs were tattooed from thigh to heel and who wore a red loincloth. Tupaia, the Ra’iatean priest and navigator who sailed with James Cook on the Endeavour in 1769, was one of them.

What they did best was perform. Their dances, skits and songs were often intensely erotic, and Salmond reads them as a way of stirring up the power of the gods to make the land and its people fertile. They took part in the life-cycle rituals of high-ranking families. They came adorned with scented oil, flowers and cloth dyed scarlet, and the smell of them arrived before the dancing did. Henry records a sharper side as well. In their plays an arioi actor could put on a burlesque copy of royal dress and mock a chief, or a priest, to his face while the audience laughed, and nobody could punish him for it. Henry adds that this often did good, because it shamed the targets into mending their ways.

Their standing followed them into war. Henry says the arioi were never molested, and they sometimes entertained the warriors on the battlefield during lulls in the fighting. Salmond describes them as holding power over life and death and being greatly venerated. After death, the flowering, perfumed paradise of Rohutu-no’ano’a was kept for chiefs and for arioi.

All of this came at a cost, and the cost was children. Salmond states the rule plainly: arioi were forbidden to have children, and unless a baby was killed at birth its parents lost their sacred status. Henry’s account limits the practice to most of the eight orders rather than all of them, exempting the highest, so the sources do not agree on how far the rule reached. Cook wrote in his journal of 1769 that members formed couples and lived together as man and wife while destroying their offspring. The babies were killed.

The society’s powers grew out of its closeness to ‘Oro: the right to speak freely before chiefs, safe passage through war, a share in rituals that were meant to make the land fruitful, and a place in paradise at the end. Its limits grew out of the same source. The sacred status was conditional, and a member who kept a child gave it up. The protection lasted only as long as ‘Oro did. When Protestant missionaries gained ground in the islands in the early nineteenth century, the arioi were suppressed, and the fleets with their feather streamers stopped coming.

Other Polynesian islands had institutions that invite comparison, among them the kaioi of the Marquesas and the hula schools of Hawai’i. The name itself did not disappear. A Tahitian novel by Vairaumati no Ra’iatea, published in 2001, is called Arioi, and a cultural and artistic school founded in Papara in 2016 took the name too, teaching dance, language and crafts under the banner of the society that once crossed the lagoons with drums and flutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What were the Arioi?

The Arioi were a sacred society of men and women in the Society Islands, including Tahiti and Ra’iatea, dedicated to the god ‘Oro. Members were travelling performers, orators, priests and navigators whose dances, songs and plays formed part of religious and chiefly rituals. The English accounts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries often spell the name Areoi.

Who founded the Arioi society?

The Arioi traced their order to the god ‘Oro, god of fertility and war and son of the creator Ta’aroa and Hina. ‘Oro’s two brothers, ‘Oro-tetefa and Uru-tetefa, were the society’s patron gods. In the story of ‘Oro’s marriage to the mortal woman Vairaumati of Borabora, the brothers turned themselves into red feathers and a pregnant sow to serve as wedding gifts.

How were Arioi ranks shown?

Arioi ranks were shown by tattoos, with each of the society’s eight grades carrying its own pattern. The lowest grades had small marks behind the knees or a circle around the ankle, while the highest grade, the ‘avae parai or black-legs, had legs tattooed from thigh to heel and wore a red loincloth. The Ra’iatean navigator Tupaia, who sailed with Captain Cook, belonged to this highest grade.

Why did the Arioi kill their children?

Arioi members were forbidden to raise children, and a baby had to be killed at birth or its parents lost their sacred status in the society. Teuira Henry’s Ancient Tahiti says the rule applied to most of the eight orders but not the highest, so the sources differ on its reach. James Cook recorded the practice in his journal in 1769.

What happened to the Arioi?

The Arioi society was suppressed after Protestant missionaries gained influence in the Society Islands in the early nineteenth century. The name lives on in a 2001 Tahitian novel titled Arioi and in a cultural and artistic school founded in Papara, Tahiti, in 2016.

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Tangaroa, Hawaiki, Māui, Tane, Rongo, Tūmatauenga, Lua-o-Milu, Polynesian Mythology