230 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
in anguish, foaming at the mouth, his eyes apparently 
ready to start from his head, his countenance exhibiting 
every form of terrific distortion and pain, his limbs 
agitated with the most violent and involuntary convul¬ 
sions. The friends of the hoy were standing round, filled 
with horror at what they considered the effects of the 
malignant demon; and the sufferer shortly afterwards 
expired in dreadful agonies. In general, the effects of 
incantations were more gradual in their progress, and 
less sudden, though equally fatal in their termination. 
The belief of the people in the power of the sorcerers 
remained unshaken, until the renunciation of idolatry, 
and the whole population were consequently kept in 
most humiliating and slavish fear of the demons. No 
rank or class was supposed to be exempt from their fatal 
influence. The young prince of Taiarabu, Te-arii-na- 
vaho-roa, brother of the late king, was by many of the 
people considered as destroyed, by Metia, a prophet of 
Oro, and a celebrated sorcerer, w'ho had sometimes been 
known to threaten even the king himself with the effects 
of his indignation. Give up, give up,'’ was the lan¬ 
guage he on one occasion employed, when addressing the 
king, lest I bend my strong bowin allusion, it is 
supposed, to his pretended influence with the demon. 
Whole families were sometimes destroyed. In Huahine, 
out of eight, one individual alone survives; seven, it is 
imagined, having been cut off by one sorcerer. 
The imprecation was seldom openly denounced, unless 
the agent of the powers of darkness imagined his victim 
had little prospect of escape, and that his family were 
not likely to avenge his death. In general, these myste¬ 
ries were conducted with that secrecy, which best com¬ 
ported with such works of darkness. Occasionally the 
