NOTIONS OF DEATH. 
395 
served among the ancient nations, might be cited ; 
but these are sufficient to shew the agreement in 
the testimony to the same event, preserved by the 
most distant tribes of the human family. 
Before closing the account of the ancient state 
of the people, their views in relation to the origin 
of those maladies with which they were afflicted, 
the cause of death, and their ideas of a future 
state, require to be noticed. Some of their usages 
and opinions on these subjects were remarkably 
curious. Every disease was supposed to be the 
effect of direct supernatural agency, and to be 
inflicted by the gods for some crime against the 
tabu, of which the sufferers had been guilty, or in 
consequence of some offering made by an enemy 
to procure their destruction. Hence, it is pro¬ 
bable, in a great measure, resulted their neglect 
and cruel treatment of their sick. The same 
ideas prevailed with regard to death, every in¬ 
stance of which they imagined was caused by the 
direct influence of the gods. 
The natives acknowledged that they possessed 
articles of poison, which, when taken in the food, 
would produce convulsions and death, but those 
effects they considered more the result of the 
god’s displeasure, operating by means of these 
substances, than the effects of the poisons them¬ 
selves. Those who died of eating fish, of which 
several kinds found on their coasts are at certain 
seasons unsuitable for food, were supposed to die by 
the influence of the gods; who, they imagined, 
had entered the fish, or rendered it poisonous. 
Several Europeans have been affected by these 
fish, though only slightly, usually causing swell¬ 
ing of the body, a red colour diffused on the 
skin, and a distressing head-ache. Those who 
