AREOI SOCIETY. 
229 
instead of paper, and formed in shape according to 
the fancy of its owner. 
These are only some of the principal games or 
amusements of the natives; others might be added, 
but these are sufficient to shew that they were not 
destitute of sources of entertainment, either in 
their juvenile or more advanced periods of life. 
With the exception of one or two, they have all, 
however, been discontinued, especially among the 
adults; and the number of those followed by the 
children is greatly diminished. This is, on no 
account, matter of regret. Many were in them¬ 
selves repulsive to every feeling of common 
decency, and all were intimately connected with 
practices inimical to individual chastity, domestic 
peace, and public virtue. When we consider the 
debasing tendency of many, and the inutility of 
others, we shall rather rejoice that much of the 
time of the adults is passed in more rational and 
beneficial pursuits. The practice of useful mecha¬ 
nic arts, of agriculture, and of fishing, are better 
adapted to preserve the robustness and vigour of 
their constitutions, and at the same time to exempt 
them from the moral evils of their games. Few, if 
any of them, are so sedentary in their habits, as 
to need these amusements for exercise; and they 
are not accustomed to apply so closely to any of 
their avocations, as to require them merely for 
relaxation. 
The greatest source of amusement to the people, 
as a nation, was most probably the existence of a 
society, peculiar to the Islands of the Pacific, if 
not to the inhabitants of the southern groups. 
This was an institution called the Areoi society. 
Many of the regulations of this body, and the 
practices to which they were addicted, cannot be 
