396 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
were killed in battle were also supposed to die 
from the influence of the gods, who, they fancied, 
had actually entered the weapons of their mur¬ 
derers. Hence, those who died suddenly were 
said to be seized by the god. 
Their ideas of a future state were vague and 
indefinite. They generally spoke of the place to 
which departed spirits repaired on leaving the 
body, as the po , state of night. This also was the 
abode or resort of the gods, and those deified 
spirits that had not been destroyed. What their 
precise ideas of a spirit were, it is not easy to 
ascertain. They appear, however, to have ima¬ 
gined the shape or form resembled that of the 
human body, in which they sometimes appeared 
in dreams to the survivors. 
When the spirit left the body, which they called 
miuhi te varua e te atua, the spirit drawn out by 
the god, (the same term, unuhi, is applied by them 
to the drawing a sword out of its scabbard,) it was 
supposed to be fetched, or sent for, by the god. 
They imagined that oramatuas , or demons, were 
often waiting near the body, to seize the human 
spirit as it should be drawn out (they supposed) 
from the head ; and, under the influence of strong 
impressions from such superstitions, or the effects 
of a disordered imagination, when dying, the poor 
creatures have sometimes pointed to the foot of 
the mat or the couch on which they were lying, 
and have exclaimed, “There the varua , spirits, 
are waiting for my spirit; guard its escape, pre¬ 
serve it from them,” &c. 
On leaving the body, they imagined it was 
seized by other spirits, conducted to the po , or 
state of night, where it was eaten by the gods ; not 
at once, but by degrees. They imagined, that 
