318 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
and human hair ornaments most of their implements 
of war. According to the testimony of the Euro¬ 
pean Missionaries, by whom they have been most 
recently visited, part, if not all, the bodies of the 
slain furnish the victor’s banquet. Their feeding 
on each other, does not appear to be confined 
to seasons of famine, or the feast of triumph, but 
to be practised from motives more repulsive and 
criminal. LangsdorfF, who accompanied the Rus¬ 
sian embassy to Japan, states, on the authority of 
a Frenchman who had resided some years in the 
islands, that the tauas, or priests, often regale 
themselves on human flesh, merely from the de¬ 
light they take in it. For this purpose, they act as 
if under the influence of inspiration, and, after 
varied contortions of the body, appear to fall into 
a deep sleep, before a multitude of spectators; 
when they awake, they relate what the spirit has 
said to them in their dream. The communication 
sometimes is, that a woman or a man, a tataued or 
or untataued man, a fat or lean man, an old man, 
or a young man from the next valley, or border of 
the next stream, must be seized, and brought to 
them. Those to whom this is related immediately 
conceal themselves near a footpath or river, and 
the first person that passes that way, bearing any 
resemblance to the description given by the priest, 
is taken, conveyed to the marae, and eaten by 
the priests.* Conduct more diabolical than that 
here described, cannot easily be conceived of. I 
have always been reluctant to admit the canniba¬ 
lism of any of the Polynesian tribes, but the con¬ 
curring testimony of foreigners of every nation, by 
whom the Marquesans have been visited, and of 
the native teachers from the Society Islands, who 
* LangsdorfF, vol. ii. p. 150. 
