134 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
ment they had to steal the boat, when they pos« 
sessed so many canoes of their own. They have 
generally answered, that they did not take it to 
transport themselves from one island to another, 
for their own canoes were more convenient, and 
they knew better how to manage them; but be¬ 
cause they saw it was not sewed together, but 
fastened with nails. These they wanted,—there¬ 
fore stole the boat, and broke it to pieces the next 
day, in order to obtain the nails to make fish¬ 
hooks with. We have every reason to believe that 
this was the principal, if not the only motive, by 
which they w r ere actuated in committing the de¬ 
predation which ultimately led to such unhappy 
consequences. They prize nails very highly; and 
though we do not know that they ever went so far 
in their endeavours to obtain a more abundant 
supply, as the Society Islanders did, who actually 
planted them in the ground, hoping they would 
grow like potatoes, or any other vegetable, yet 
such is the value they still set on them, that the 
fishermen would rather receive a wrought nail, to 
make of it a fish-hook according to their own 
taste, than the best English-made fish-hook we 
could give them. 
It has been supposed that the circumstance of 
Captain Cook’s bones being separated, and the 
flesh taken from them, was evidence of a savage 
and unrelenting barbarity; but so far from this, it 
was the result of the highest respect they could 
shew him. 
We may also mention here, the reason for which 
the remains of Captain Cook received, as was the 
case, the worship of a god. Among the kings who 
governed Hawaii, or an extensive district in the 
island, during what may in its chronology be 
