POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES, 
267 
Georgian group, it extended also to the Leeward or 
Society Islands. A simultaneous movement appears to 
have taken place among the rulers of the people, to 
throw off the yoke of pagan priestcraft, to rend asunder 
their fetters, and remove from the eyes of the nation, 
in its remote extremities, the veil of delusion by which 
they had so long been blinded. Tamatoa, the king of 
Raiatea, shortly after his return from Tahiti, publicly 
renounced idol-worship, and declared himself a believer 
in Jehovah and Jesus Christ. Many of the chiefs, and 
a number of the people, followed his example. 
The prince of darkness, the author of paganism, 
whose sway had been unrivalled, and whose seat and 
stronghold had long been here, as well as in the other 
islands, did not tamely surrender his dominions. The 
idolatrous chiefs and inhabitants took up arms, to defend 
the cause of the gods, and revenge the insult offered by 
the king. Their efforts, however, were but as the 
ragings of an expiring monster, whose fangs were broken 
and whose heart had been pierced, llie idolaters were de¬ 
feated, and afterwards treated with the same clemency and 
lenient conduct which the Christian conquerors in Tahiti 
had manifested, and Christianity was firmly established. 
The vanquished, however, though spared and liberated 
by the generosity of Tamatoa, shewed themselves un¬ 
worthy of the kindness with which they had been treated, 
by still talking of war on behalf of the idols. But as 
their numbers were few, their influence small, and as the 
great body of the people were doubtless favourable to the 
new order of things, hopes of success were comparatively 
faint, and no further attempt was made. 
The chiefs and greater part of the population of Tahaa, 
an island included in the same reef with Raiatea, imitated 
