POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
153 
conversation, frequently introduced by tlie more think¬ 
ing or inquisitive among them, was, the seat of the 
affections, and the locality of intellect. Their ideas 
and ours were totally at variance on this point; 
and, from the very nature of the Subject, it was 
impossible to demonstrate the accuracy of one or the 
other. No part in the system of Drs. Gall and Spurz- 
heim ever obtained among them; and so far from being 
phrenologists, they did not imagine the brain to be even 
the seat of thought. The frequent eulogy pronounced 
by us on an oration or action, in which intellect and 
right feeling are developed, viz. that it is creditable 
alike to the head and the heart’’ of the speaker or actor, 
would have been altogether unintelligible to them. The 
only exception to the prevailing opinion^ which deprives 
the head or brain of all connexion with the exercise of 
the mind, is the term for headach, which is tahoa^ and 
is also used to signify confusion of noise, and perplex¬ 
ity from attention to a multitude of objects at the same 
time. 
The phraseology employed in speaking of the seat of 
the intellect and the affections, presents another analogy 
between the idiom of their language, and that of the 
ancient Hebrews, When speaking of mental or moral 
exercises, they invariably employ terms for which the 
English word bowels” is perhaps the best translation : 
hence they say, te manao o te obu, or ^ roto i te ohu ; 
the thought of the bowels, or within the bowels ; te hina- 
aro o te aau, the desire of the bowels; te riri o te aau, 
the anger of the bowels. Although bowels is, perhaps, 
the best single word for obu or aau, in the significa¬ 
tion of which we have not been able to discover any 
difference, it does not convey the full meaning of the 
II. 
X 
