35 2 
Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
the sitting people and passed to a place where 
all could see and hear him. 
First he sat down, and placed his hands, 
with the palms outspread upon the ground, 
and bent his head, and seemed to listen ; and 
all knew that he was waiting for the voice of 
the gods to enter into him. For a long time 
he sat thus ; then his arms began to quiver, 
his fingers to dig into the ground, and a strange, 
groaning sound came from his lips. Suddenly 
he sprang up, and the people saw that his eyes 
were tea tea mataj- and bloody froth ran from 
his mouth and fell upon the ground, and the 
people knew that one of the gods had come 
into him. Then he spoke, and his voice was 
like the sharp scream of the great fish eagle. 
“ False men of Vahitahi, why have ye 
neglected me, thy god Tahua—I that live in 
the deep sea, and with U’umao and Mau swim 
1 In some of the Ellice and Paumotuan Islands to the 
present day the children have an extraordinary manner of 
amusing themselves by placing a stiff piece of stout grass, or 
such substance, across the open eyes in a perpendicular 
position, and forcing the eyelids back. The appearance 
of the eyes when this is done is horrible and ghastly in the 
extreme. In the Paumotuan Islands this was a common 
practice till forbidden by the missionaries. 
