White. — On the Ceremony of Rahui. 355 



ward for the honour of spearing the inoffensive girl, as the 

 acmal murderer obtained lands and distinction. Great care, 

 however, was requisite in slaying victims not to batter them 

 too much, as Kongo would thereby be insulted." 



A third instance is as follows : — 



" Vaitamana's Speech. — At one of our New Year gather- 

 ings a venerable man with silver locks named Vaitamana 

 stood up and said, ' Young people, look at me. Do you know 

 that I was one of those appointed for saci'ifice to Eongo? 

 These ears and this nose of mine were to have been cut off 

 and divided out to each chief in token of office. This head 

 was, in the phrase of those days, ' e kuto roroi ' (' a feast-pro- 

 vider '). It would not actually be eaten, but until I or some 

 other suitable victim had been offered to the god of war no 

 culture of the soil was lawful and no feasting permitted, 

 blood-shedding alone being the order of the day. 

 Without a human sacrifice the drum of peace could not be 

 beaten, nor a new paramount chief be appointed.' " 



A remarkable saying, " Here are the pigs" we were in 

 search of," was used by the delighted Apai to his followers 

 when the young people cried out, " Alas, we too shall be 

 slain." The cannibals surrounded them, &c. This and the ac- 

 companying note will compare with a like saying by a Maori 

 when treacherously betraying the captain and crew of a Euro- 

 pean ship (see former paper, Transactions, vol. xxviii., p. 54). 



An instance of human sacrifice in New Zealand will be 

 given later on. 



Mr. W. Wyatt Gill touches on the subject of rahui at 

 page 205 of "Jottings from the Pacific," but gives the word 

 as raui, omitting the letter h: "A green leaflet (of the 

 cocoanut palm) tied round the upper part of the left arm 

 was, and in some islands still is, a mark of idolatrous 

 tapu. On Niutao (dried cocoanut) I watched the wor- 

 shipper of a crooked post (the middle post of the three 

 side posts supporting a roof) in which his god was sup- 

 posed to be enshrined offering a sacred leaflet and three 

 cocoanuts morning and evening. The extremity of a cocoa- 

 nut-leaf consisting often of twelve leaflets, when cut ofi" and 

 bound with yellow sennit by the priest, constituted the fisher- 

 man's god on Mangaia. A similar device is used in a formal 

 invitation of a chief to a feast, the sacred sennit being, of 

 course, omitted. These leaflets are inserted in the thatch 

 of the chief's house by the messenger, but no loord is uttered. 

 All tapu restrictions are still intimated by pinning to the soil 



* Note. — " A human being was never at Rarotonga called a ' pig ' 

 unless intended for eating. To this day the direst ofienee you can offer 

 to another is to call him a ' pig.' This is the true Rarotongan curse." 



