POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
341 
meiit in the organization of their civil polity, which, 
under corresponding circumstances, is but rarely attained, 
and could scarcely have been expected. 
Their government, in all its multiplied, ramifipations, 
was closely interwoven with their false system of reli¬ 
gion, in its abstract theory, and in its practical details. 
The god and , the king were generally supposed to .share 
the authority over the mass of mankind between them. 
The latter sometin^ies personated the former, and received 
the homage and the requests presented by the votaries of 
the imaginary ^divinity, and ^at other times officiated as 
the head of his people, in rendering their acknowledgr 
ments to the gods. The office of high ^priest was fre¬ 
quently sustained by the king-r—who thus, united in his 
person the highest civil and sacerdotal station in the land. 
The genealogy of the reigning family was usually traced 
back to the first ages of their traditionary history; and 
the kings, in some of the islands, were supposed .to have 
descended from the gods. Their persons were always 
sacred, and their families constituted the highest rank 
recognized among the people. 
The different grades in .society were not so distinctly 
marked in Polynesia, as among the inhabitants of India, 
where the institution of caste exists; nor were they, so 
strongly defined in Tahiti as among the Sandwich 
Islanders, whose government was .perhaps more despotic 
than that which prevailed in the southern islands. The 
lines of separation were, nevertheless, sufficiently, pro¬ 
minent ; the higher orders being remarkably tenacious of 
their dignity, and jealous of its deterioration by contact 
with those beneath, them. . , . 
Society among them was divided into three distinct 
ranks : the hui ariij the royal family and nobility—the 
