ELEGIAC BALLADS. 
411 
The wailing was not so excessive, or the duration 
so long, nor were the enormities committed so 
great, as in the event of a death. The otohaa 
appears to have been adopted by the people to 
express the violence or excess of their passion, 
whether joy or grief. 
There was another custom associated with their 
bereavements by death, of an opposite character, 
and more agreeable to contemplate. This was 
their elegiac ballads, prepared by the bards, and 
recited for the consolation of the family. They 
generally followed the otohaa, and were often 
treasured up in the memory of the survivors, and 
eventually became a part of the ballads of the 
nation. Though highly figurative and beautiful in 
sentiment, breathing a pathetic spirit of sympathy 
and consolation, they were often historical, or 
rather biographical, recounting, under all the 
imagery of song, the leading events in the life of 
the individuals, and were remarkably interesting, 
when that life had been one of enterprise, adven¬ 
ture, or incident. 
Scarcely had Taaroarii, the young chieftain of 
Huahine, been consigned to the tomb, when a 
ballad was prepared, after the ancient usage of his 
country. I heard it once or twice, and intended 
to have committed it to paper, but my voyage to 
the Sandwich Islands, shortly afterwards, pre¬ 
vented. It commenced in a truly pathetic man¬ 
ner ; the first lines were— 
Ua moe te teoto o Atiapii i roto te ana 
Va ram e adu iona uuauna. 
u The pride of Atiapii* sleeps in the cavern ; 
Departed has its glory, or its brightness/’ &c. 
* One of the names of the island of Huahine. 
