He was punished, but finally escaped from school and became
a _bote_, which vocation he has since followed."
At Tahiti at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Turnbull[34] found
that "there are a set of men in this country whose open profession is of
such abomination that the laudable delicacy of our language will not admit
it to be mentioned. These are called by the natives _Mahoos_; they assume
the dress, attitude, and manners of women, and affect all the fantastic
oddities and coquetries of the vainest of females. They mostly associate
with the women, who court their acquaintance. With the manners of the
women they adopt their peculiar employments, making cloth, bonnets, and
mats; and so completely are they unsexed that had they not been pointed
out to me I should not have known them but as women. I add, with some
satisfaction, that the encouragement of this abomination is almost solely
confined to the chiefs."
Among the Sakalaves of Madagascar there are certain boys called _sekatra_,
as described by Lasnet, who are apparently chosen from childhood on
account of weak or delicate appearance and brought up as girls.
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