POLYNESIAN RBSEARCBKS. 
377 
vanced in civilization^ under such a system^ was impos¬ 
sible, and that they should, under such circumstances, 
have tilled a sufficient quantity of ground to furnish sup¬ 
plies for the shipping, is a matter of greater surprise, than 
that they should not have cultivated more. The humi¬ 
liating degradation to which it reduced the farmers, and 
the constant irritation of feelings to which this wretched 
system exposed them, were not the only evils that re¬ 
sulted from it. It naturally led the raatiras to regard 
their chiefs as enemies, and generated disaffection to their 
administration, while it led the former to consider the 
latter as inimical to their own interests. It also greatly 
diminished their resources, for under the discouragements 
resulting from constant liability to plunder, the people 
were unable to furnish those supplies, which they would 
otherwise have found it a satisfaction to render. 
This system of civil polity, disjointed and ill-adapted 
as it was to answer any valuable purpose, was closely 
interwoven with their sanguinary system of idolatry, and 
sanctioned by the authority of the gods. The king was 
not only raised to the head of this government, but he 
was considered as a sort of vicegerent to those super¬ 
natural powers presiding over the invisible world. 
Human sacrifices were offered at his inauguration ; and 
whenever any one, under the influence of the loss he had 
sustained by plunder, or other injury, spoke disre¬ 
spectfully of his person and administration, not only 
was his life in danger, but human victims must be 
offered, to cleanse the land from the pollution it was sup¬ 
posed to have contracted. 
The intimate connexion between the government and 
their idolatry, occasioned the dissolution of the one, with 
the abolition of the other; and when the system of pagan 
He 3 c 
