320 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
attendants as body-guards, towards the close of 
the exhibition the men sought to approach the 
king’s person, and kiss his hand, or the females to 
salute his face; w r hen one or the other succeeded 
in this, the heiva, or dance, was complete, and the 
performance discontinued. 
This, however, was only part of the ceremony, 
for while they were thus employed, the priests 
were engaged in supplicating the gods that these 
amusements might be continued, and their enjoy¬ 
ments in feasting, dancing, and the pursuits con¬ 
nected with them, might not be again suspended or 
disturbed by war. Peace was now considered as 
established, the club and spear were cleaned, var¬ 
nished, and hung up in their dwellings; and the 
festive entertainments, pagan rites, and ordinary 
avocations of life, resumed, till some fresh quarrel 
required an appeal to their weapons, and again led 
them to the field of plunder and of death. 
I have dwelt longer on this subject than I 
intended, and perhaps than it required; but the 
former frequency of war, the motives influencing 
the parties engaging in the ceremonies connected 
with it, and the manner in which it was prose¬ 
cuted, were all adapted to convey, next to their 
mythology, a correct idea of the national character 
of the people, who made war, paganism, and 
vicious amusements, the business of life. In all 
our converse with them relative to their former 
state, no subject was so frequently introduced. 
No event in history, no character in their bio¬ 
graphy, appeared unconnected with some warlike 
expedition, or feat of arms; and almost all the 
illustrations of the most powerful and striking 
expressions which we sought to investigate, were 
drawn from the wars. 
