848 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
the provisions. I once saw in the island of Raiatea 
upwards of fifty large baked hogs, and a proportionate 
quantity of poe, yams, &c. served up at one time for a 
party of chiefs on a visit from the Georgian or Wind¬ 
ward Islands. In this respect the Sandwich Islanders 
are not behind their southern neighbours, but in their 
feasts the flesh of the dog constitutes the principal 
meat. I have seen nearly two hundred dogs cooked at 
one time ; and during the last visit which Taumuarii, 
late king of Tauai, and Kaahumanu his queen, paid 
Kuakini, the governor of this island, a feast was pre¬ 
pared for them by the latter, at which Auna was pre¬ 
sent, and counted four hundred baked dogs, with fish 
and hogs, and vegetables in proportion. Sometimes 
the food is spread out on the ground, which is previ¬ 
ously covered with grass or green leaves; the party sit 
down around it, and the chiefs distribute it among 
them, after the servants have carved it with a knife, or 
with a piece of bamboo cane, which, before visited by 
foreigners, was the only kind of knife they possessed. 
The serrated edge of the hard bamboo cane, when but 
recently split, is very sharp; and we have often been 
surprised at the facility with which they cut up a large 
hog with no other instrument. The head of a hog, or 
at least the brains, were always offered to the principal 
chief of the party ; particular parts w r ere given to the 
priests, if any were present; while the backbone and 
the tail were the usual perquisites of the person who 
carved. 
In general, however, when such large presents of 
food are made, each hog or dog when baked is put into 
a distinct basket, and piled up in heaps in the court¬ 
yard, in front of the house where the chief is residing ; 
