222 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
sacrifices is eaten by the spirit of the idol before whom 
it is presented. Birds resorting to the temple^ were 
said to feed upon the bodies of the human sacrifices 
and it was imagined the god approached the temple 
in the bird^ and thus devoured the victims placed upon 
the altar. In some of the islands^ man-eater’^ was 
an epithet of the principal deities; and it was pro¬ 
bably in connexion with this, that the king, who often 
personated the god, appeared to eat the human eye. 
Part of some human victims were eaten by the priests. 
The Marquesans are known to be cannibals ; the inha¬ 
bitants of the Palliser or Pearl Islands, in the immediate 
neighbourhood of Tahiti, to the eastward, are the same. 
A most affecting instance of their anthropophagism is 
related by recent visitors ; who state that a captive 
female child, pining with hunger, on begging a morsel 
of food from the cruel and conquering invaders of her 
native island, was supplied by a piece of her own 
father’s body ! 
The bodies of prisoners in war, or enemies slain in 
battle, appear to have been eaten by most of the Harvey 
Islanders, who reside a short distance to the west of the 
Society groups. There were several inducements to this 
horrid practice. The New Zealanders ate the bodies of 
their enemies, that they might imbibe their courage, &c. 
Hence, they exulted in their banquet on a celebrated 
warrior; supposing that, when they had devoured his 
flesh, they should be imbued with his valiant and daring 
spirit. I am not certain that this was the motive by 
which the eastern Polynesians were influenced, but one 
principal design of their wars was to obtain men to eat. 
Hence, when dwelling in their encampment, and clearing 
the brushwood, &c. from the place in which they expected 
