POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
515 
prevailed in the islands^ will not be inappropriately- 
introduced here. Some of their usages and opinions on 
these subjects were remarkably curious. Every disease to 
which they were subject^ was supposed to be the effect 
of direct supernatural agency, and to be inflicted by the 
gods for some crime against the tabu, of which the 
sufferers had been, guilty, or in consequence of some 
offering made by an enemy to procure their destruction. 
Hence, it is probable, in a great measure resulted their 
neglect and cruel treatment of their sick. The same 
ideas prevailed with regard to death, every instance of 
which they imagined was caused by the direct influence 
of the gods. ^ 
The natives acknowledged that they possessed articles 
of poison, which, when taken in the food, would produce 
convulsions and death, but those effects they considered 
more the result of the god’s anger, and operating by 
means of these substances, than the effects of the poisons 
themselves. Those who died of eating fish, of which 
several kinds found on their coasts are at certain seasons 
unsuitable for food, were supposed to die by fhe influence 
of the gods; who, they imagined, had entered the fish^ or 
rendered it poisonous. Several Europeans have been 
affected by these fish, though - only in a slight degree^ 
usually causing swelling of the body, a red colour diffused 
on the skin, and a distressing head-ache. Those*-who 
were killed in battle were also supposed to die from the 
and our dwelling prolonged in this land; but we know not that we shall 
see each other^s faces again. You know that frail and feeble is the body 
of man. Tamarii (her infant daughter) is learning the word of God. 
Come back to Huahine. Peace be to you all, from Jesus Christ.”— 
The letter from which the above is taken, is dated October 6, 1827, 
and is signed, “ Taaroarii-vahine.” 
