162 
A VOYAGE TO 
1779 - 
March. 
great battles, and other fignal enterprizes; but the death of 
any confiderable Chief calls for a facrifice of one or more 
Towtows, according to his rank ; and we were told, that ten 
men were deftined to fuffer on the death of Terreeoboo. 
What may (if any thing poffibly can) leffen, in fome fmall 
degree, the horror of this practice, is, that the unhappy 
vi6tims have not the mod: 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 Ikulls of the captives, that had been facri- 
ficed at the death of fome great Chief, and which were 
fixed on the rails round the top of the Moral 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 ftone 
fence, we were told that it was an Here-eere^ or burying- 
ground of a Chief; and there, added our informer, point¬ 
ing to one of the comers, lie the tangata and waheene 
taboo , or the man and woman who were facrificed at his 
funeral. 
To this clafs of their cuftoms 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 
loft one or more of them ; and we always underftood th?.t 
this voluntary punilhment, like the cutting off the joints 
of the finger at the Friendly Illands, was not inflicted on 
themfelves from the violence of grief, on the death of their 
friends, but was defigned as a propitiatory facrifice to the 
Eatooa , to avert any danger or mifchief to which they might 
he expofed. 
We 
