HUMAN SACRIFICES TO THE WAR-GODS. 151 
the destruction of their enemies. They do not 
appear to have imagined these gods exerted any 
protecting influence over their devotees, but that 
their presence and their power destroyed the 
courage and strength of their enemies, and filled 
their hearts with terror and dismay. Sometimes 
the priests proposed that human victims should 
be slain; sometimes the gods themselves were 
said to require them, promising victory on con¬ 
dition of their being offered; and at other times 
they were slain after having consulted the gods 
as their oracle, and, not having received a favour¬ 
able answer, they were desirous to consult them 
again before they abandoned the enterprise. If 
any of their enemies had been taken captive, the 
victims were selected from among their number; 
if not, individuals who had broken tabu, or ren¬ 
dered themselves obnoxious to the chiefs, were 
fixed upon. A message was sent to the chief 
under whose authority they were, and at the ap¬ 
pointed time he sent his men, who generally 
despatched them with a stone or club, without any 
notice, and then carried them away to the temple ; 
sometimes they were bound and taken alive to the 
heiau, and slain in the outer court, immediately 
before being placed on the altar. It does not 
appear that they were slain in the idol’s presence, 
or within the temple, but either on the outside, or 
at the place where they were first taken; in both 
cases they appear to have endeavoured to preserve 
the body entire, or mangled as little as possible. 
The victims were generally despatched by a blow 
on the head with a club or stone ; sometimes, how¬ 
ever, they were stabbed. The number offered at a 
time varied according to circumstances, two, four, 
or seven, or ten, or even twenty, we have been 
