74 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
over with red feathers, so curiously wrought in as to 
resemble the skin of a beautiful bird. A native helmet 
was placed on the idol’s head, from the crown of which 
long tresses of human hair hung down over its shoul¬ 
ders. Its mouth, like the greater number of the Ha¬ 
waiian idols, was large and distended. 
In all the temples dedicated to its worship, the image 
was placed within the inner apartment, on the left hand 
side of the door, and immediately before it stood the 
altar, on which the offerings of every kind were usually 
placed. They did not say whether human victims were 
ever sacrificed to appease its imagined wrath, but 
large offerings, of every thing valuable, were frequent. 
Sometimes hogs were taken alive, as presents. The 
large ones were led, and the smaller ones carried in 
the arms of the priest, into the presence of the idols. 
The priest then pinched the ears or the tail of the pig 
till it made a squeaking noise, when he addressed the 
god, saying, “ Here is the offering of such a one of 
your kahu,” (devotees.) A hole was then made in the 
pig’s ear, a piece of cinet, made of the fibres of the 
cocoa-nut husk, was fastened in it, and the pig was set 
at liberty until the priest had occasion for him. In 
consequence of this mark, which distinguished the 
sacred hog, he was allowed to range the district at 
pleasure; and whatever depredations he might commit, 
driving him away from the enclosures into which he 
had broken, was the only punishment allowed to be 
inflicted. 
Keoroeva’s hogs were not the only ones thus privi¬ 
leged. The same lenient conduct was observed to¬ 
wards all the sacred pigs, to whatever idol they had 
been offered 
