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POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
When the reduction of a fortress was a matter of 
importance, the co-operation of the gods was again 
invoked, and the Hiamoea performed. This was a 
religious ceremony, in which the finest mats, cloth, 
and other valuable spoils, were taken by the victo¬ 
rious party, as near to the fortress as it was safe to 
approach. Here they took the different articles of 
property in their hands, and, holding them up, 
offered them to the gods, who, it was supposed, 
had hitherto favoured the besieged ; the priests 
frequently exclaiming to the following effect— 
Tane in the interior or fortress, Oro in the interior 
or fortress, &c. come to the sea, here are your 
offerings, &c. The priests of the besieged, on the 
contrary, endeavoured to detain the gods, by ex¬ 
hibiting whatever property they possessed, if they 
considered the god likely to leave them. A war¬ 
rior would sometimes offer himself, and say, Eiaha 
e haere , “ Leave us not, here is your offering, 
O Oro! even I!” It is hardly possible to avoid 
admiring the patriotism evinced on such occasions. 
It was a devotion worthy of a better cause. 
Although the besieged might offer their human 
sacrifices, they must perform what, under these 
circumstances, would be called Taaraa-moua , the 
fall from the mountain, and which they carried as 
near the temple of the tutelar deity as their ene¬ 
mies would allow them to approach, when, having 
deposited their offering, they fled to the fortress, 
determined to defend it; yet, if the property which 
the victors had there offered, and devoted as it 
were to the gods, was valuable and abundant, the 
besieged became dispirited, believing that the gods 
had left them, and gone to the party by whom 
these offerings had been made. They always 
imagined that the gods were influenced by motives 
