POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
503 
CHAP. XVIII. 
Account of Taaroarii—Encouraging circumstances connected with his 
early life—His marriage—Profligate associates—Fatal effects of bad 
example—Disorderly conduct—His illness—^Attention of the chiefs 
and people—Visits to his encampment—Last interview—Death of Taa¬ 
roarii—Funeral procession—Impressive and affecting circumstances 
connected with his decease and interment—His monument and epitaph 
—Notice of his father—His widow and daughter—General ideas of the 
people relative to death and a future state—Death the consequence of 
Divine displeasure—State of spirits—Miru, or heaven—Religious cere¬ 
monies for ascertaining the causes of death—Embalming—The burying 
of the sins of the departed—Singular religious ceremony—Oflferings to 
the dead—Occupation of the spirits of the deceased—Superstitions of 
the people—Otohaa, or lamentation—Wailing—Outrages committed 
under the paroxysms of grief—Use of sharks’ teeth—Elegiac ballads 
singularly beautiful—The heva—Absurdity and barbarism of the 
practice—Institution of Christian burial—Dying expressions of native 
converts. 
Although many of the parents had the satisfaction to 
behold their children growing up under the influence of 
those instructions which they were so anxious to impart, 
and realizing, as they arrived at years of maturity, all 
they had desired, there were instances of an opposite 
kind. The circumstances preceding the death of Taa^ 
roarii, the only son of the king, the chief of Sir Charles 
Sanders’ Island, and the heir to the government of 
Huahine, were peculiarly distressing. 
