152 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
informed, have been offered at once. When car¬ 
ried into the temple, every article of clothing they 
might have on was taken off, and they were laid 
jn a row with their faces downwards, on the altar 
immediately before the idol. The priest then, in 
a kind of prayer, offered them to the gods; and if 
any offerings of hogs were presented at the same 
time, they were afterwards piled upon them, lying 
at right angles across the human bodies, where the 
whole were left to rot and putrefy together. 
War was seldom declared without the appro¬ 
bation of the gods, obtained through the medium 
of the priests, though it is probable the answer of 
the diviners was given with due regard to the 
previously known views of the king and chiefs. 
Sometimes the question of war or peace was 
deliberated in a public meeting of chiefs and 
warriors, and these popular assemblies furnished 
occasion for the most powerful displays of native 
eloquence, which, though never present at one of 
these councils, we should think, from the speci¬ 
mens we have heard repeated, was, like that of 
their neighbours of the southern isles, at once bold 
in sentiment, beautiful in imagery, and powerful 
in effect. 
When war was declared, the king and warrior 
chiefs, together with the priests, fixed the time 
and place for commencing, and the manner of 
carrying it on. In the mean time, the Runapai 
(messengers of war) were sent to the districts and 
villages under their authority, to require the ser¬ 
vices of their tenants, in numbers proportionate to 
the magnitude of the expedition. These were 
ordered to come with their weapons, candle-nuts 
for torches, light calabashes for water, dried fish, 
or other portable provisions. The summons was 
