X 6 2 AVOYAGETO 



'779- great battles, and other fignal entcrprizes ; but the death of 

 any considerable Chief calls for a facrifice of one or more 

 Torvtows, according to his rank ; and we were told, that ten 

 men were deftincd to fufler on the death of Terreeoboo. 

 What may (if any thing poilibly can) lefTen, in fome fmall 

 degree, the horror of this practice, is, that the unhappy 

 victims have not the moft diftant intimation of their fate. 

 Thofe who are fixed upon to fall, are fet upon with clubs 

 wherever they happen to be ; and, after being difpatched, 

 are brought dead to the place, where the remainder of the 

 rites are completed. The reader will here call to his re- 

 membrance the fkulls of the captives, that had been facri- 

 ficed at the death of fome great Chief, and which were fix- 

 ed on the rails round the top of the Morai at Kakooa. We 

 got a farther piece of intelligence upon this fubject at the 

 village of Kowrowa; where, on our inquiring into the ufe 

 of a fmall piece of ground, inclofed with a Itone fence, we 

 were told that it was an Here-eere, or burying-ground of a 

 Chief; and there, added our informer, pointing to one of 

 the corners, lie the tangata and ivahecne taboo, or the man 

 and woman who were facrificcd at his funeral. 



To this clafs of their cufloms may alfo be referred that 

 of knocking out their fore-teeth. Scarce any of the lower 

 people, and very few of the Chiefs, were feen, who had not 

 lolt one or more of them; and we always underRood, that 

 this voluntary punilhment, like the cutting oiF the joints 

 of the finger at the Friendly Iflands, was not inflicted on 

 themfelves from the violence of grief, on the death of their 

 friends, but was dcfigncd as a propitiatory facrifice to the 

 Eatooa, to avert any danger or mifchicf to which they might 

 be expofed. 



6 We 



