368 THE CORAL LANDS OF THE PACIFIC. 



the candidate had any children, he had at once to destroy 

 them. 



The ' manners and customs ' of the Areois in their diabolical 

 orgies, I shall not further refer to. The worst pollutions of 

 which it is possible for man to be guilty, were the organised 

 amusements of a society of human beings in an earthly para- 

 dise, for such the Society Islands are. 



A number of singular ceremonies were always performed at 

 the death of an Areoi. The oto hua, a general lamentation, 

 was continued for two or three days. During this time the 

 body remained at the place of its decease, surrounded by the 

 relatives and friends of the departed. It was then taken by 

 the Areois to the grand temple, where the bones of the kings 

 were deposited. Soon after the body had been brought within 

 the precincts of the place, the priests of Oro came, and stand- 

 ing over the corpse, offered a long prayer to his god. This 

 prayer and the ceremonies connected therewith were designed 

 to divest the body of all the sacred and mysterious influences 

 the individual was supposed to have received from the god, 

 when in the presence of the idol the perfumed oil had been 

 sprinkled upon him, and he had been raised to the order or 

 rank in which he died. By this act it was thought they were 

 returned to Oro, by whom they had been originally imparted. 

 The body was then buried, as the body of a common man, 

 within the precincts of the temple in which the bodies of the 

 chiefs were interred. 



The Areoi idea of paradise, or Robutu Noanoa, approached the 

 Mahometan in character : an eternity of bestiality in a lovely 

 climate free from all earthly defects, was to be the future of 

 the Areoi in the life beyond the grave. The devil of the 

 Areoi tradition has, in great measure, been exorcised by the 

 teachings of Christianity, and in a certain degree the inhabit- 



