526 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
what they wanted, &c. Sometimes the spirits upbraided 
the living with former Avickedness, or the neglect of 
some ceremonious enactment, for which they were 
unhappy. 
When a person was seized with convulsions or hys¬ 
terics, it was said to be from seizure by the spirits, who 
sometimes scratched their faces, tore their hair, or other¬ 
wise maltreated them. For some time after the death of 
Taaroarii we could seldom induce any of our servants to 
go out of the house after it was dark, under an apprehen¬ 
sion that they should see or be seized by his spirit. They 
were, however, very ignorant young persons. The natives 
in general laugh at their former credulity. The whole 
system of their superstition seems to have been, in every 
respect, wonderfully adapted to debase the mind, and 
keep the people in the most abject subjection to the 
priests, who, in order to maintain their influence, had 
recourse to this extensive and imposing machinery of 
supernatural agency 3 and it must be confessed that, con¬ 
sidering their isolated situation, their entire ignorance 
of science, of natural and experimental philosophy, their 
ardent temperament, the romantic nature of the 
country, and the adventurous character of many of their 
achievements, there was something remarkably imposing 
to an uncultivated mind in the system here incul¬ 
cated. 
Almost every native custom connected with the death 
of relations or friends, was singular, and none perhaps 
more so than the otahaa, which, though not confined 
to instances of death, was then most violent. It consisted 
in the most frantic expressions of grief, under which 
individuals acted as if bereft of reason. It commenced 
when the sick person appeared to be dying; the Avail- 
