348 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
Its advantages are not very apparent, unless we suppose 
it was adopted by the father to secure to his son undis¬ 
puted succession to his dignity and power. If this was 
the design, the plan was admirably adapted to its accom¬ 
plishment; for the son was usually firmly fixed in the 
government before the father’s decease, and was some¬ 
times called to act as regent for his own son, before, 
according to the ordinary institutions, he would himself 
have been invested with royal dignity. 
Considering the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands 
as but slightly removed from barbarism, we are almost 
surprised at the homage and respect they paid to their 
rulers. The difference between them and the common 
people was, in many respects, far greater than that 
which prevails between the rulers and the ruled in most 
civilized countries. Whether, like the sovereigns of the 
Sandwich Islands, they were supposed to derive their 
origin by lineal descent from the gods, or not, their per¬ 
sons were regarded as scarcely less sacred than the per¬ 
sonifications of their deities. 
Every thing in the least degree connected with the 
king or queen — the cloth they wore, the houses 
in which they dwelt, the canoes in which they voyaged, 
the men by whom they were borne when they journeyed 
by land, became sacred^—and even the sounds in the 
language, composing their names, could no longer be 
appropriated to ordinary significations. Hence, the 
original names of most of the objects with which they 
were familiar, have from time to time undergone con¬ 
siderable alterations. The ground on which they trod, 
even accidentally, became sacred; and the dwelling 
under which they might enter, must for ever after be 
vacated by its proprietors, and could be appropriated 
