508 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
immediate neighbourhood of the Georgian Islands in the 
east, and in several of the Harvey Islands in the west— 
especially Aitutake, where it continued until the abolition 
of idolatry in 1823. 
Here the warriors were animated to the murderous 
combat by allusions to the inhuman feast it would furnish 
at the close. In New-Zealand, it is stated that a warrior 
has been known, when exulting over his fallen antagonist, 
to sever his head from his body, and, while the life- 
blood has flowed warm from the dying trunk, to scoop it 
up in his hands, and, turning to his enemies with fiend¬ 
like triumph, drink it before them. 
Besides the atore, embowelling, which was frequently 
inflicted, they sometimes practised what they called tiputa 
taata. When a man had slain his enemy, in order fully 
to satiate his revenge, and intimidate his foes, he some¬ 
times beat the body flat, and then cut a hole with a stone 
battle-axe through the back and stomach, and passed his 
own head through the aperture, as he would through the 
hole of his tiputa or poncho; hence the name of this 
practice. In this terrific manner, with the head and arms 
of the slain hanging down before, and the legs behind 
him, he marched to renew the conflict. A more horrific 
act and exhibition it is not easy to conceive of, yet I 
was well acquainted with a man in Fare, named Taiava, 
who, according to his own confession, and the declaration 
of his neighbours, was guilty of this deed during one of 
their recent wars. 
Other brutalities were practised towards the slain, 
which I never could have believed, had they not been told 
by the individuals who had been engaged in them, but 
which, though I do not doubt their authenticity, are im¬ 
proper to detail. I should not have dwelt so long on the 
