Tahiti was ruled by native kings (and one queen) of the Pōmare dynasty from 1788 to 1880, when the last monarch, Pōmare V, ceded his country to France. Details from the coronation ritual of Pōmare II, second King of Tahiti (1791), have been preserved. The rite centered upon the "maro ura", a sacred girdle symbolizing Pōmare's status and power, composed of yellow and red feathers, five yards long by fifteen inches wide. Black feathers bordered the garment's top and bottom. This robe also contained the auburn hair of Richard Skinner, one of the mutineers from the H.M.S. Bounty who had elected to stay in Tahiti when Fletcher Christian set out for Pitcairn Island. As the ship's barber, Skinner commanded special prestige among Tahitians, who valued his red hair and wove some of it into their "maro ura". Also incorporated into the girdle was a red British pennant, which Samuel Wallis of the "H.M.S. Dolphin" had raised on Tahiti when he took possession of it for the British crown in 1767. The Tahitians had torn down this flag, and woven it into their royal robe as a symbol of their own sovereignty over their island.