350 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
On these occasions, their majesties never suffered their 
feet to touch the ground; but when they wished to 
change, what to them answered the purpose of horses, 
they called two of the men, who were running by 
their side; and while the man, on whose neck they were 
sitting, made little more than a momentary halt, the 
individuals who were to take them onward, fixed their 
hands upon their thighs, and bent their heads slightly 
forward: when they had assumed this position, the 
royal riders, with apparently but little effort, vaulted 
over the head of the man on whose neck they had been 
sitting, and, alighting on the shoulders of his successor 
in office, proceeded on their journey with the shortest 
possible detention. 
This mode of conveyance was called amo or vaha. It 
could not have been very comfortable even to the riders, 
while to the bearers it must have been exceedingly labo¬ 
rious. The men selected for this duty, which was con¬ 
sidered the most honourable post next to that of bearers 
of the gods, were generally exempted from labour, and, 
as they seldom did any thing else, were not perhaps 
much incommoded by their office; and although the seat 
occupied by those they bore was not perhaps the most 
easy, yet as it was a mark of the highest dignity in the 
nation; and as none but the king and queen, and occa¬ 
sionally their nearest relatives, were allowed the distinc¬ 
tion it exhibited, they felt probably a corresponding 
satisfaction and complacency in thus appearing before 
their subjects, whenever they left their hereditary dis¬ 
trict. The effect must have been somewhat imposing, 
when, on public occasions, vast multitudes were assem¬ 
bled, and their sovereign, thus elevated above every indi¬ 
vidual, appeai'ed among them. 
