COUNCILS or WAR 
153 
in general obeyed with alacrity, and as their spears, 
clubs, javelins, and slings, were usually suspended 
in some convenient part of every house, they armed 
with these, and soon joined the forces at the ap¬ 
pointed rendezvous. 
When the people en masse were required, the 
Tuahaua was sent, whose office it was to bring 
every individual capable of bearing arms. Some¬ 
times the Uruoki, another officer, was afterwards 
despatched ; and if he found any lingering behind, 
who ought to have been with the army, he cut or 
slit one of their ears, tied a rope round their body, 
and in this manner led them to the camp. To 
remain at home, when summoned to the field, was 
considered so disgraceful, the circumstances at¬ 
tending detection so humiliating, and the mark of 
cowardice, with which it was punished, so indelible, 
that it was seldom necessary to send round the 
last-named officer. 
These messengers of war were sometimes called 
Rere, a word which signifies to fly, probably from 
the rapidity with which they conveyed the orders 
of the chiefs. They generally travelled at a run¬ 
ning pace, and, in cases of emergency, are re¬ 
ported to have gone round the island of Hawaii 
in eight or nine days; a distance which, in¬ 
cluding the circuitous route they would take, to 
call at different villages, exceeds three hundred 
miles. 
When the different parties arrived at the place 
of rendezvous, the chief of the division or district, 
with some of inferior rank, waited on the king or 
commanding chief, and reported the number of 
warriors they had brought. They then selected a 
spot for their encampment, and erected their Hare- 
pai or Auoro ? in which they abode till the army 
