TAPU. 
64 
tangata noa,” or common man, and this is what long deterred 
many high chiefs from embracing Christianity, lest they should 
lose this main support of their power. 
Few but ariki, or great tohungas, claimed the power of 
the tapu; inferior ones, indeed, occasionally used it, but the 
observance of it was chiefly confined to his own retainers, and 
was often violated with impunity, or by giving a small utu or 
payment. But he who presumed to violate the tapu of an 
ariki, did it at the risk of his life and property. 
The tapu in many instances was beneficial, considering the 
state of society, the absence of law, and the fierce character 
of the people; it formed no bad substitute for a dictatorial 
form of government, and made the nearest approach to an 
organized state of society, or rather it may be regarded as the 
last remaining trace of a more civilized polity, possessed by 
their remote ancestors. In it we discern somewhat of the ancient 
dignity and power of the high chief or ariki, and a remnant 
of the sovereign authority they once possessed, with the 
remarkable union of the kingly and sacerdotal character in 
their persons. It rendered them a distinct race ; more nearly 
allied to gods than men ; their persons, garments, houses and 
everything belonging to them, being so sacred, that to touch 
or meddle with them, was alone sufficient to occasion death. 
Their gods being no more than deceased chiefs, they were 
regarded as living ones, and thus were not to be killed by inferior 
men, but only by those who had more powerful atuas in them. 
The victorious chief who had slain numbers, and had swallowed 
their eyes, and drank their blood, was supposed to have added 
the spirits of his victims to his own; and thus increased the 
power of his spirit. To keep up this idea, and hinder the 
lower orders from trying whether it were possible to kill such 
corporeal and living gods, was the grand work of the tapu; 
and it did succeed in doing so : during by-gone ages it has had 
a wide spread sway, and exercised a fearful power over 
benighted races of men, until the stone cut without hands, 
smote this mighty image of cruelty on its feet, caused it to fall, 
and like the chaff of the summer’s thrashing floor, the wind of 
God’s word has swept it away ! 
