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POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
his family, after a season of absence, or exposure to 
danger, his arrival was greeted, not only with the cordial 
welcome, and the warm embrace, but loud wailing was 
uttered, and the instrument armed with shark’s teeth 
applied, in proportion to the joy experienced. 
The early visitors, and the first Missionaries, were 
much surprised at this strange and contradictory usage; 
and, in answer to their inquiries, were informed, that it 
was the custom of Tahiti. The wailing was not so 
excessive, or the duration so long, nor were the enormities 
committed so great, as in the event of a death. The 
otohaa appears to have been adopted by the people to 
express the violence or excess of the passion with which 
they were exercised, whether joy or grief. 
There was another custom associated with their be¬ 
reavements by death, of an opposite character, and more 
agreeable to contemplate. This was their elegiac 
ballads, prepared by the bards, and recited for the con ¬ 
solation of the family. They generally followed the 
otohaa, and were often treasured up in the memory of 
the survivors, and eventually became a part of the 
ballads of the nation. Though highly figurative and 
beautiful in sentiment, breathing a pathetic spirit of 
sympathy and consolation, they were often historical, or 
rather biographical, recounting, under all the imagery 
of song, the leading events in the life of the individuals, 
and were remarkably interesting, when that life had been 
one of enterprise, adventure, or incident. 
In every nation it has been found that poetry is of 
much earlier date than any other production of the 
human mind,” and I am disposed to ascribe the highest 
antiquity to these ballads. Much of their mythology is 
probably to be ascribed to this source, and many of their 
