36 cook's voyage to sept. 



the size and shape of a horse-shoe having their edges 

 fringed with black feathers. The other end was 

 forked, and the points were of different lengths. The 

 feathers were in square compartments, ranged in two 

 rows, and otherwise so disposed as to produce a pleas- 

 ing effect. They had been first pasted or fixed upon 

 some of their own country cloth, and then sewed to 

 the upper end of the pendant which Captain Wallis 

 had displayed, and left flying ashore, the first time 

 that he landed at Matavai. This was what they told 

 us ; and we had no reason to doubt it, as we could 

 easily trace the remains of an English pendant. 

 About six or eight inches square of the metro was 

 unornamented, there being no feathers upon that 

 space, except a few that had been sent by Wahea- 

 dooa, as already mentioned. The priests made a 

 long prayer relative to this part of the ceremony ; 

 and, if I mistook not, they called it the prayer of the 

 rnaro. When it was finished, the badge of royalty 

 was carefully folded up, put into the cloth, and de- 

 posited again upon the morai. 



The other bundle, which I have distinguished, by 

 the name of the ark, was next opened at one end. But 

 Ave were not allowed to go near enough to examine 

 its mysterious contents. The information we re- 

 ceived was, that the Eatooa, to whom they had been 

 sacrificing, and whose name is Ooro, was concealed 

 in it ; or rather, what is supposed to represent him. 

 This sacred repository is made of the twisted fibres of 

 the husk of the cocoa-nut, shaped somewhat like a 

 large fid or sugar-loaf, that is, roundish, with one end 

 much thicker than the other. We had very often 

 got small ones from different people, but never knew 

 their use before. 



By this time the pig that had been killed, was cleaned, 

 and the entrails taken out. These happened to have 

 a considerable share of those convulsive motions, 

 which often appear in different parts after an animal 

 is killed, and this was considered by the spectators as 

 a very favourable omen to the expedition, on account 



