The idols of the heathen are in general appropriate emblems of the beings they worship and fear; and if we contemplate those of the South Sea Islanders, they present to our notice all that is adapted to awaken our pity. The idols of Tahiti were generally shapeless pieces of wood, from one to four feet long, covered with finely braided cinet of cocoa-nut fibres, ornamented with scarlet feathers. Oro was a straight log of hard casuarina wood, six feet in length, uncarved, but decorated with feathers. The gods of some of the adjacent islands exhibit a greater variety of form and structure. The accompanying plate contains several of these.

The two figures in the centre, No. 1. exhibit a front and profile view of Taaroa, the supreme deity of Polynesia; who is generally ragarded as the creator of the world, and the parent of gods and men. The image from which these views were taken, is nearly four feet high, and twelve or fifteen inches broad, carved out of a solid piece of close, white, durable wood. In addition to the number of images or demigods forming the features of his face, and studding the outside of his body, and which were designed to shew the multitudes of gods that had proceeded from him; his body is hollow, and when taken from the temple, in which for many generations he had been worshipped, a number of small idols were found in the cavity. They had perhaps been deposited there, to imbibe his supernatural powers, prior to their being removed to a distance, to receive, as his representatives, divine honours. The opening to the cavity was at the back; the whole of which, as shewn in the profile view, might be removed. The image to the right, No. 3. is another representation of Taaroa. No. 5. is Terongo, one of the principal gods, and his three sons. No. 2. is

an image of Tebuakina, three sons of Rongo, a principal deity in the Harvey Islands. The name is probably analogous to Orono in Hawaii, though distinct from Oro in Tahiti. No. 6. exhibits a sacred ornament of a canoe from the island of Huahine. The two figures at the top, are images worshipped by fishermen, or those frequenting the sea. The two small idols at the lower corners of the plate, No. 7. are images of oramatuas, or demons. The others are gods from the Harvey Islands. The gods of Rarotogna were some of them much larger; Mr. Bourne, in 1825, saw fourteen about twenty feet long, and six feet wide.

Such were the objects the inhabitants of these islands were accustomed to supplicate; and to appease or avert the anger of which, they devoted not only every valuable article they possessed, but murdered their fellow creatures, and offered their blood. Human victims were sacrificed to Taaroa, Oro, and several others. It has been supposed, that the circumstance of the priests' offering the eye, the most precious part of the victim, to the king, who appeared to eat it, indicated their having formerly devoured the men they had sacrificed. I do not regard this fact as affording any very strong evidence, although I have not the least doubt that the inhabitants of several of the South Sea Islands have eaten human beings.

From the many favourable traits in their character, we have been unwilling to believe they had ever been cannibals; the conviction of our mistake has, however, been impressed by evidence so various and multiplied as to preclude uncertainty. Their mythology leads them to suppose, that the spirits of the dead are eaten by the gods or demons; and that the spiritual part of their

sacrifices is eaten by the spirit of the idol before whom it is presented. Birds resorting to the temple, were said to feed upon the bodies of the human sacrifices and it was imagined the god approached the temple in the bird, and thus devoured the victims placed upon the altar. In some of the islands, man-eater" was an epithet of the principal deities; and it was probably in connexion with this, that the king, who often personated the god, appeared to eat the human eye. Part of some human victims were eaten by the priests.

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The Marquesans are known to be cannibals; the inhabitants of the Palliser or Pearl Islands, in the immediate neighbourhood of Tahiti, to the eastward, are the same. A most affecting instance of their anthropophagism is related by recent visitors; who state that a captive female child, pining with hunger, on begging a morsel of food from the cruel and conquering invaders of her native island, was supplied by a piece of her own father's body!

The bodies of prisoners in war, or enemies slain in battle, appear to have been eaten by most of the Harvey Islanders, who reside a short distance to the west of the Society groups. There were several inducements to this horrid practice. The New Zealanders ate the bodies of their enemies, that they might imbibe their courage, &c. Hence, they exulted in their banquet on a celebrated warrior; supposing that, when they had devoured his flesh, they should be imbued with his valiant and daring spirit. I am not certain that this was the motive by which the eastern Polynesians were influenced, but one principal design of their wars was to obtain men to eat. Hence, when dwelling in their encampment, and clearing the brushwood, &c. from the place in which they expected

to engage the enemy, they animated each other to the work in the following terms, "Clear away well, that we may kill and eat, and have a good feast to-day." To "kill and eat," was the haughty warrior's threat; and to be "killed and eaten," the dread of the vanquished and the exile. In the island of Rarotogna, they cut off the heads of the slain, piled them in heaps within the temple, and furnished the banquet of victory with their bodies.

The desire of revenge, or the satisfaction resulting from actually devouring an enemy, was not their only motive. The craving of nature, and the pangs of famine, often led to this unnatural crime. It was the frequent inducement in the Marquesas, and also in the Harvey Islands. In Maute, Metiaro, and Atiu, seasons of scarcity are severely felt; and, to satisfy their hunger, a number of persons, at the hour of midnight, have stolen a man from a neighbouring residence, killed, and eaten him at once. Mr. Bourne, who visited the islands in 1825, states, that members of the same family are not safe; and so awful is their wretchedness, that this horrid cruelty is practised towards those who, in civilized communities, are the objects of most endearing attachment: the husband has preyed upon the body of his wife, and the parent upon his child, in a most revolting manner, without subjecting it to any previous preparation. These facts are too painful and barbarous to admit detail. Another, and perhaps more criminal motive than either revenge or want, led some to the perpetration of these appalling deeds: this was, the indulgence of their depraved and vitiated appetite.

In the little island of Tapuaemanu, between Eimeo and Huahine, tradition states that there were formerly

cannibals. In the reign of Tamatafetu, an ancestor of the present ruler, it is related, that when a man of stout or corpulent habit went to the island, or lowland on the reef, he was seldom heard of afterwards. The people of the island imagined those thus missing were destroyed by the sharks: but for many years, the servants of the king followed them to the island on the reef, and having murdered, baked them there. When the bodies were baked, they wrapped them in leaves of the hibiscus and plantain, as they were accustomed to wrap their eels, or other fish, taken and cooked on the island; they then carried them to the interior, where the king and his servants feasted on them. Their deeds were at length discovered by Feito, the wife of the king. She was in the house on one occasion, and, as they supposed, asleep, when she overheard the king and his servants planning the death of Tebuoroo, her brother. Anxious to save her brother's life, she revealed to him the purpose of the chief. He communicated it to the raatiras, or farmers, who immediately repaired to the marae of Taaroa, to inquire what they should do; and left with a unanimous determination to destroy their chief. Two men, Mehoura and Raiteanui, were appointed to hide themselves near his place of bathing; and when the chief came to bathe, they killed him with stones. A native of this island related the above statement within the last two years, at a public meeting held near the place where it is reported to have occurred, and afterwards in private stated that it was according to their traditions. Mr. Barff, to whom I am indebted for the tradition, adds, "The people at large affirmed it to be true." This unnatural crime does not appear to have been general; and the above is the only direct account that we have of its