328 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
the Areois^ and the chiefs^ who could afford to pay the 
priests for the passport thither: the charges were so 
great^ that the common people seldom or never thought 
of attempting to procure it for their relatives | besides, 
it is probable that the high distinction kept up between 
the chiefs and people here, would be expected to 
exist in a future state, and to exclude every individual of 
the lower ranks, from the society of his superiors. 
Those who had been kings or Areois in this world, 
were the same there for ever. They were supposed to 
be employed in a succession of amusements and indul¬ 
gences similar to those to which they had been addicted 
on earth, often perpetrating the most unnatural crimes, 
which their tutelar gods were represented as sanctioning 
by their own example. 
These are some of the principal traditions and par¬ 
ticulars relative to this singular and demoralizing in¬ 
stitution, which, if not confined to the Georgian and 
Society Islands, appears to have been patronized and 
carried to a greater extent there than among any other 
islands of the Pacific. Considering the imagined source 
in which it originated, the express appointment of Oro, 
their powerful god, the antiquity it claimed, its remark¬ 
able adaptation to the indolent habits and depraved 
uncontrolled passions of the people, the sanction it 
received here, and the prospect it presented to its 
members of the perpetuity, in a future state, of gratifica¬ 
tions most congenial to those to whom they were 
exhibited, the Areoi institution appears a master-piece 
of Satanic delusion and deadly infatuation, exerting an 
influence over the minds of an ignorant, indolent, and 
demoralized people, which no human power, and nothing 
less than a Divine agency, could counteract or destroy. 
