POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
525 
tion of idolatry, the zeal he had manifested in the 
establishment of Christianity, and the assistance he had 
rendered to the Missionaries, caused a considerable sensa¬ 
tion to be experienced among all classes by his death; 
and as his name is perhaps more familiar to the English 
reader than that of any other native of the South Sea 
Islands, some account of his person and character cannot 
fail to be acceptable. 
Pomare, originally called Otoo, was the son of Pomare 
and Idia; the former was sovereign of the larger penin¬ 
sula when it was first visited by Cook, and was then 
called Otoo; subsequently, by the aid of the mutineers 
of the Bounty, he became king of the whole island, and 
adopted the name of Pomare, which at his death was 
assumed by his son, and has since been the hereditary 
name of the reigning family. Idia, his mother, was a 
princess of the adjacent island of Eimeo, and sister to 
Motuaro, one of the principal chiefs at the time of 
Cook’s visit. 
Pomare was the second son of Otoo and Idia, the first 
having been destroyed according to the regulations of 
the Areois society, of which they were members. He 
was born about the year 1774, and was consequently 
about forty-seven years of age at the time of his decease. 
Tall, and proportionably stout, but not corpulent, 
his person was commanding, being upwards of six feet 
high.* His head was generally bent forward, and he 
seldom walked erect. His complexion was not dark, but 
rather tawny; his countenance often heavy, though his 
eyes sometimes appeared to beam with intelligence. 
The portrait of Pomare, in the frontispiece to the first 
volume of this work, is from one taken at Tahiti by an 
* His father's height was six feet four inches. 
